We humans live by stories, says David Korten, and the stories that now govern our society set us on a path to certain self-destruction. In this profound new book, Korten shares the results of his search for a story that reflects the fullness of human knowledge and understanding and provides a guide to action adequate to the needs of our time.

Korten calls our current story Sacred Money and Markets. Money, it tells us, is the measure of all worth and the source of all happiness. Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. Although many recognize that this story promotes bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics, it will remain our guiding story until replaced by one that aligns with our deepest understanding of the universe and our relationship to it.

To guide our path to a viable human future, Korten offers a Sacred Life and Living Earth story grounded in a cosmology that affirms we are living beings born of a living Earth itself born of a living universe. Our health and well-being depend on an economy that works in partnership with the processes by which Earth's community of life maintains the conditions of its own existence—and ours. Offering a hopeful vision, Korten lays out the transformative impact adopting this story will have on every aspect of human life and society.

In this personal and political narrative, Salon.com journalist and anti-globalization activist Marisa Handler offers readers both a compelling coming-of-age memoir and eye-opening insights into what’s really going on inside the global justice movement.Combining captivating personal memoir and astute political reportage, Marisa Handler offers a fascinating inside look at the burgeoning global justice movement through her own compelling coming-of-age story. Born in apartheid South Africa, Handler emigrated to Southern California at the age of twelve. Her gradual realization that injustice existed even in this more open, democratic society spurred a lifelong commitment to activism that would take her around the world and back again. Handler shares intimate details of her life as a global justice activist to offer a revealing perspective on what drives the movement. Tracing her own evolution as an activist, her story crisscrosses the globe, examining current sociopolitical issues from apartheid and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, corporate globalization, and the wars of the Bush administration. Along the way, Handler paints compelling portraits of the people she's encountered, shares gritty details of the sometimes-harrowing events that have changed and shaped her, and describes how she came to advocate a spiritually based, nonviolent activism as the best means for building the kind of world we wish to see.

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet.

With the collapse of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, Western pundits declared that capitalism had triumphed. They were wrong—balance triumphed. A healthy society balances a public sector of respected governments, a private sector of responsible businesses, and a plural sector of robust communities. Communism collapsed under the weight of its overbearing public sector.

Now the “liberal democracies” are threatened—socially, politically, even economically—by the unchecked excesses of the private sector.

Radical renewal will have to begin in the plural sector, which alone has the inclination and the independence to challenge unacceptable practices and develop better ones. Too many governments have been co-opted by the private sector. And corporate social responsibility can't compensate for the corporate social irresponsibility we see around us “They” won't do it. We shall have to do it, each of us and all of us, not as passive “human resources,” but as resourceful human beings.

Tom Paine wrote in 1776, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” He was right then. Can we be right again now? Can we afford not to be?

Bestselling author Margaret Wheatley and long-time Berkana Institute collaborator Deborah Frieze take readers on a learning journey into seven diverse communities that have walked out of limiting beliefs and practices and walked on to something new. From Brazil to Ohio, they demonstrate how each of these communities made a conscious choice to develop a healthier, more resilient world based on the idea to “create with what we have.”At a time when most communities’ resources are stretched past the breaking point, how is it possible to deal with the enormous challenges that families, neighborhoods, cities, regions, and nations face today? This inspiring book takes readers to seven communities around the world where the people have walked out of limiting beliefs and practices that precluded solutions to major social problems, and walked on to discover bold new ways to meet their needs. This book is a true learning journey, filled with intimate stories and portraits of the people and places the authors came to know through years of working together to transform their communities. The journey begins in Mexico, then moves to Brazil, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Greece and the U.S. The authors’ lives and ways of thinking have been transformed by these experiences and relationships – an experience they hope to recreate for the reader through vivid prose and photos. The reader will experience first hand how a change of beliefs about people results in new capacities and the possibility of a more healthy future.

Polls consistently show that most Americans are progressives at heart. In FRAMING THE FUTURE political consultant and communications expert Bernie Horn shows how the 3 core progressive values—Freedom, Opportunity, Security—define the collective aspirations that drive our nation, and how progressives can use this framework of values to communicate effectively with “persuadable” voters.Polls consistently show that most Americans are progressives at heart. By margins of at least two to one, we favor affordable healthcare for all, even if it means raising taxes; want federal action to combat global warming; support stricter gun control; don’t want Roe vs. Wade overturned; and the list goes on. So why is it so hard for progressive candidates to win elections? Because, says Bernie Horn, most progressives don’t know how to explain their ideas in ways that resonate with “persuadables”—the significant slice of the electorate who don’t instantly identify as Democrats or Republicans. These are the voters who swing elections. There’s been a lot of theoretical discussion about framing lately, but Framing the Future isn’t theory—the concepts outlined have been used successfully by progressive candidates across the nation, even in such conservative bastions as Montana, Arizona, and Florida. Drawing on rigorous polling data and his own experience as a veteran political consultant, Horn explains how persuadable voters think about issues and make political decisions and why, as a result, the usual progressive approaches are practically designed to fail with them. He offers a crash course in the nuts and bolts of framing and shows how to use three bedrock American values—freedom, opportunity, and security—to frame progressive positions in a way that creates a consistent, unified political vision that will appeal to persuadable voters. He even offers advice on specific words and phrases to use when talking about a variety of issues and ideas.

Polls consistently show that most Americans are progressives at heart.  By margins of at least two to one, we favor affordable healthcare for all, even if it means raising taxes; want federal action to combat global warming; support stricter gun control; don’t want Roe vs. Wade overturned; and the list goes on. So why is it so hard for progressive candidates to win elections?

Because, says Bernie Horn, most progressives don’t know how to explain their ideas in ways that resonate with “persuadables”—the significant slice of the electorate who don’t instantly identify as Democrats or Republicans. These are the voters who swing elections. There’s been a lot of theoretical discussion about framing lately, but Framing the Future isn’t theory—the concepts outlined have been used successfully by progressive candidates across the nation, even in such conservative bastions as Montana, Arizona, and Florida.

Drawing on rigorous polling data and his own experience as a veteran political consultant, Horn explains how persuadable voters think about issues and make political decisions and why, as a result, the usual progressive approaches are practically designed to fail with them.  He offers a crash course in the nuts and bolts of framing and shows how to use three bedrock American values—freedom, opportunity, and security—to frame progressive positions in a way that creates a consistent, unified political vision that will appeal to persuadable voters. He even offers advice on specific words and phrases to use when talking about a variety of issues and ideas.

 

We live in a world that needs radical transformation if our children and grandchildren are to live healthy, peace-filled lives. But where to start? In this inspiring new book, activist Roberto Vargas says the answer lies surprisingly close: at home, with our closest relationships. In our daily lives we experience countless opportunities to empower, inspire, and support positive change in those around us. In Family Activism Vargas explains how fostering what he calls familia—close, loving connections with our relatives and with those we choose to call family—can help us develop the skills and attitudes we need to tackle broader problems in our community, our nation, and the world. Vargas explains the ideas underlying the familia approach and the techniques that support it using examples from his own life, some of them very emotionally charged. He does more than just describe practices like the family council, unity circles, and family ceremonies—he shares how they transformed him as a husband, father, son, brother, friend, and as a committed community activist. Each chapter ends with a series of questions that will help readers understand these practices more deeply and apply them inside and outside of the family.