American readers can ignore the first paragraph which was written for the British audience.
The book...leaves the reader with the clear and distinct impression that the next few decades will decide the fate of the human race. Blacker ominously warns us that the current global hegemony of the capitalist order presents most of our species with a grim choice: ‘we are subject to the harsh survivalist disjunction - we will have to kill it before it kills us’.
.... His pessimism could have the effect of disabling an activist response to the challenges of our era, but it also serves as a useful antidote to the unthinking optimism that has sometimes blighted the rhetoric of the left in previous eras. Blacker provides a salutary warning that we may not have experienced the worst that capitalism can throw at us: ‘they could lead us down into something backwardly atavistic like neo-feudalism or something new or worse’.