This assessment the state of adult education--its traditions, current problems, and possible futures--is written from a social action perspective. The authors demonstrate how adult education's commitment to deliver social change ran into difficulties in the 1980s and 1990s. The book identifies four possible scenarios for the future and on this basis defines the challenges confronting an adult education still committed to social change. The authors outline the key features of an adult education that can contribute to "learning our way out of" the dead end of relentless industrial development, mounting inequality, mass immiseration, and alienation.