Amazon Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review to be helpful:
Required reading for community transformation, May 8, 2008
By H. Mason
I believe this book is a must-read for those of us who work to transform community:
It gives us a common language for talking about what makes community transformation different from human service/government planning and programs.
It integrates many important strands of transformation thinking, making transformation feel more accessible.
It helps us see what transformation looks like and connects that vision to concrete practice.
Community: The Structure of Belonging is divided into two sections. The first is titled The Fabric of Community and is for me what makes this book so important. In this section Peter provides the "why" and the "what" of community transformation. (Those of us who normally skip straight to the "how" should read Peter's previous book, The Answer to How is Yes.) In this section, we learn to not continue repeating the program, system, service problem solving that keeps us from really restoring community. We learn what transformation is, what it means to be a citizen. If we really get the message of this section, we start to BE community transformer, not just DO community building.
The second section is The Alchemy of Belonging. This is the tool kit for doing community transformation. Convening, invitation, small groups, forming the questions, holding the conversations of possibility, ownership, dissent commitment and gifts are covered here. This section expands the information that has been available on Peter's website that was developed and used in Cincinnati by A Small Group (as in Margaret Mead's axiom, "Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has.")
In the back are two extra gifts: Book at a Glance, a 10-page sentence outline of the entire book, and Role Models and Resources, which expands the concept of an annotated bibliography and offers countless opportunities for further reading and learning.
The gift of this book is a strong set of principles and usable instructions for restoring community. The challenge is to our willingness to stop what we are doing and learn what will lead us to the communities we desire.
24 of 28 people found the following review to be helpful:
This book matters, May 6, 2008
By Gary E. Petersen
Community: the Structure of Belonging is the most important book Peter Block has written and the most important book you are likely to read this year. The book is incredibly clear, profoundly important and perfectly timed.
This book is Peter's masterwork and a culmination of the important thinking he has so carefully articulated in his other classics The Empowered Manager, Stewardship and The Flawless Consultant. While others bemoan the state of our communities, the decline of our cities and the failure of institutions Peter has been thinking about "restoration" and "reweaving" of the social fabric and has defined a clear process for creating a future that we would all like to be part of.
This easy to read book has something for everyone. The theories and strategies underlying the thinking are compelling and comprehensive. The list of resources in the back of the book will lead you to people and organizations that are actively involved in building communities. The structure of the book provides easy access to the many layers of useful information including a full summary of the book added as an appendix.
What is most powerful about this book though are the clearly defined questions which result in conversations that are capable of transforming the nature of human systems. These conversations change our thinking about how we relate to each other, how we understand the notion of belonging and how we encourage the bringing of our collective gifts into our communities.
This book challenges us to become the citizens that we need to be to create the communities we want to live in. In this time in which we live it is hard for me to imagine something more important than that.
8 of 8 people found the following review to be helpful:
Peter Block Has Really Outdone Himself With This One!, May 29, 2008
By Kye B. Wood
Peter Block's new book Community really has a wealth of information about creating a healthyenvironment based on a structure that's not only innovative, but grounded in an easily adoptable format. This isn't just a consulting book, or "how to" book it has something that will appeal to anyone trying to create a sense of belonging. This book is a culmination of what Peter seems to have been building up to for years. If you're a fan of Peter's work then you probably already have this one, but if your new to Peter Block and his style this is actually a great place to start. Read Community and enjoy!
7 of 7 people found the following review to be helpful:
Community: The Structure of Belonging, May 14, 2008
By Edward Everett
Peter newest book "Community" will become a classic on how to "Build Community". It has a conceptual model of community building for those who like or need a model. It has practical ideas and a "how to" section for those who just want to get started and improve their community. The book has a wonderful list of resources and practitioners who have done this sort of work for those who want or need that. Society has lost its community building skills and this book is a clear guide on how to retrieve those skills. I wish this book existed 6 years ago when I started a community building effort in Redwood City, Ca.
This book is a precious gift to our often unrecognized and/or neglected personal need for community.
If this book was read by most council members, mayors, city managers, county managers, county board of supervisors, non-profit executive directors, school superintendents and citizen leaders and if they implimented only some of the ideas in this book our society would be profoundly changed from the bottom up which is the only way society ever changes.
Ed Everett (Retired City Manager/Consultant)
9 of 11 people found the following review to be helpful:
A handbook of anti-leadership, February 13, 2009
By Rocket Creature
I think of this book as a handbook for anti-leadership. Part of Block's thesis is that top down leadership and massive, structural programs are not effective. Instead, true change bubbles up, and starts with communities--here, loosely defined as a group of interested people getting together and coming up with something new.
The role of the leader is to invite people, set up the meeting space, and encourage their participation. This is done basically by getting them to talk and bond with each other. Note that it the leader isn't supposed to establish an agenda, or force through an analytical problem solving process (which Block hates.) The leader simply convenes the group. When done properly, magic occurs.
The book is short on examples. This may be because Block thinks of community building as a journey and not necessarily the means to an end, and examples would detract from the journey and the point he's trying to make.
I found the book a bit of a slog. It is unnecessarily dense and repetitive. It is also abstract in places, but this may simply be due to the subject matter. Block had to define his own lingo for this book, and when sentences of that lingo are strung together the result is cumbersome. A member of my book club said he spent the first 40 pages wondering if he'd ever make it to the end. He did however, and found it rewarding.
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