The book was noted for its heft, in terms of its actual page numbers, exhaustive research, and dense academic language. The writing does occasionally include illustrative anecdotes and some plain language. Rifkin synthesizes research and material from fields such as literature and the arts, theology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, and communication theory. The book was described as sociobiology. The Empathic Civilization was contrasted to the book Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, as reaching different conclusions but being complementary by offering valid alternative futures different from contemporary belief in social progress.
