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Rating: 
Summary: Visionaries, radicals, or both?
Review: Here is a book for everyone who thinks that ideas are the greatest source of power on the planet. Within this highly-readable volume, you'll find ideas from more than sixty original thinkers - people who, depending on your point of view, can be described as mavericks, geniuses, philosophers, mystics, agitators, insurgents, visionaries, leaders, or members of the lunatic fringe. The profiles are billed as presenting "People and Ideas to Change Your Life." That may be a tall order to fill, but the range of ideas presented will, at the very least, make you re-think your view of the world and the people in it. It is a book of possibilities and alternative viewpoints, of helpful suggestions and dire warnings - little or none of which you'll find championed in the mainstream media. These are the voices the establishment wants to relegate to the hinterlands of public debate. They are important voices, regardless of whether you find yourself nodding in agreement or shaking your head in bemusement.
Rating:
Summary: Visionaries, radicals, or both?
Review: Here is a book for everyone who thinks that ideas are the greatest source of power on the planet. Within this highly-readable volume, you'll find ideas from more than sixty original thinkers - people who, depending on your point of view, can be described as mavericks, geniuses, philosophers, mystics, agitators, insurgents, visionaries, leaders, or members of the lunatic fringe. The profiles are billed as presenting "People and Ideas to Change Your Life." That may be a tall order to fill, but the range of ideas presented will, at the very least, make you re-think your view of the world and the people in it. It is a book of possibilities and alternative viewpoints, of helpful suggestions and dire warnings - little or none of which you'll find championed in the mainstream media. These are the voices the establishment wants to relegate to the hinterlands of public debate. They are important voices, regardless of whether you find yourself nodding in agreement or shaking your head in bemusement.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring bios of famous and unknown activists and reformers
Review: I came across this book not long ago while looking for something completely different. After reading a few of the small bios in it about activists such as Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, and bell hooks to name a few, I bought it. The best thing about the book is not the bios of the famous. It is the moving and inspiring stories of the unknowns. The activists who have worked tirelessly for years and decades to fix some injustice that they will receive very little praise for. It made me realize (I guess I had known, but needed verification) that one person can make a REAL difference and after reading this book, I won't stand idle while a problem openly exists.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring bios of famous and unknown activists and reformers
Review: I came across this book not long ago while looking for something completely different. After reading a few of the small bios in it about activists such as Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, and bell hooks to name a few, I bought it. The best thing about the book is not the bios of the famous. It is the moving and inspiring stories of the unknowns. The activists who have worked tirelessly for years and decades to fix some injustice that they will receive very little praise for. It made me realize (I guess I had known, but needed verification) that one person can make a REAL difference and after reading this book, I won't stand idle while a problem openly exists.
Rating:
Summary: 61 Sizzling Visions of Hope and Change
Review: This book presents profiles of the most original minds of our time. The Utne Reader editors have outdone themselves with the selection of this compilation. The biographical information is amazing, and the ideas that sprang from those experiences will sweep you away. The book literally cuts across the entire board: Included are scientists, mystics, activists, business leaders, talk show hosts, poets, dissidents, musicians, novelits, Buddhists, rabbis, economists, bankers, futurists, jazz singers, environmentalists, architects, community organizers, feminists, dissenters, book clubers, journalits, conservationists, philosphers, healers, dancers, and America's leading Idler. A small sample of some these amazing people: * THOMAS BERRY: Catholic priest, environmental philosopher, grandfather of the religious ecology movement. "We have a moral sense of suicide, homocide, and genocide, but no moral sense of biocide or geocide, the killing of the life systems themselves..." * NOAM CHOMSKY: After Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud comes Chomsky on the most quoted top ten list. As you can see, he is the only living person on the list, making him numero uno in the land of the living. Linguist, political analyst, and America's most prominent dissident. * THICH NHAT HANH: Described as a "living Buddha." "Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it." * SATISH KUMAR: Magazine editor, global wander, and advocate of spiritual ecology. "There is a dance between what you know and what you don't know. The place of mystery is the essential ingredient." * ZALMAN SCHACHTER-SHALOMI: Radically genius, dancing spiritualist, LSD-imbibing rabbi scholar, and flagstaff leader of the "psycho-eco-spiritual revolution of our millennial age." * STARHAWK: Pagan, feminist, author, activist, protestor, rejuvenator of rituals in American life. "And by `sacred' what I mean is not a great something that you bow down to, but what determines your values, what you would take and stand for." * FRANCES MOORE LAPPE: Author of "Diet for A Small Planet," chronicler of community activism across the country, promoter of public life. "I made a vow to myself that I would never do anything else again in my life until I understood how it related to the underlying causes of human suffering." * HELENA NORBERG-HODGE: Advocate of alternative development, defender of global diversity and local culture, founder of the Ladakh Project, a group dedicated to helping Ladakhis understand that they can choose which of the Western ways they want to adopt and which of the traditional ways they want to keep. "The destructive global economy exists only as long as we are prepared to accept it and subsidize it. We can reject it." * JOHN PAPWORTH: Human-scale advocate, former assistant to the president of Zambia, "shoplifting vicar," and protestor of "car madness." "There is surely reason to suppose that local people running their own neighborhood are far more likely to do what is decent than government ministers trapped in the entrails of power mongering on a mass scale." * JIM HIGHTOWER: Self-described populist, radio personality, former Texas commissioner of agriculture. "It won't be long before your church alter is adorned with a flashing neon sign hustling St. Joseph's aspirin." * WINONA LaDUKE: Anishinaabe nationalist, Green Party vice presidential candidate, founder of the White Earth Recovery Project. "We all need to choose some ground and stick to it." * GEOFF MULGAN: Policy adviser to British prime-minister Tony Blair, founder of the Demos think tank, and chronicler of connectedness. "The most pressing social problems no longer stem from an absence of freedom, but rather from too much freedom that leads to antisocial and self-destructive behavior..." * MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Founder of the Grameen Bank and "micro-credit," champion of women, and economist. "I avoid grandiose plans." * FRITJOF CAPRA: Ecological philosopher, physicist, and ecoliteracy advocate. "The environment is no longer one of many `single issues': it is the context of everything else-our lives, our business, our politics." * THEO COLBORN: Scientist, formulator of important theory about chemicals disrupting our endocrine systems. "Every one of you is carrying at least five hundred measurable chemicals in your body that were never in anybody's body before the 1920s." * EDWARD GOLDSMITH: Green firebrand, founder of "The Ecologist" magazine, crusader against the global economy. "Nearly everyone today seems to accept the preposterous view that modern man is actually `improving' the world..." * PAUL HAWKEN: Entrepreneur, green businessman, and prophet of a sustainable economy. Advocates nothing short of replacing our "throw-away" culture with a "closed-loop system". * HAZEL HENDERSON: Futurist, sustainable-development advocate, self-taught economist. "If I had been inducted into Economics 101, I would have suffered brain damage." * WILLIAM McDONOUGH: Architect, industrial designer, and pioneer of the next industrial revolution. "The model for the next industrial revolution may have well been right in front of us the whole time: a tree."
Other profiles include: KENNY AUSUBEL & AND NINA SIMONS, ANDREW KIMBRELL, DAVID MORIS, ANDRES DUANY & ELIZABETH PLATER-ZYBERK, STEPHAN AND ONDREA LEVINE, VIRGINIA VALENTINE, MICHAEL LIND, ROBERTA BRANDES GRATZ, JANE JACOBS, GARY DELGADO, TED HALSTEAD, RIANE EISLER, COLIN GREER, BELL HOOKS, JERRY MANDER, ERNESTO CORTES JR, THEOADORE ROSZAK, CHARLENE SPRETNAK, GLORIA ANZALDUA, OCTAVIA BUTLER, EDUARDO GALEANO, GEORGE GERBNER, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, KALLE LASN, BOBBY McFERRIN, BILL MOYERS, NEIL POSTMAN, RACHEL ROSENTHAL, JOHN RALSTON SAUL, WILLIAM STRICKLAND, LARRY DOSSEY, CHELLIS GLENDINNING, SUSAN GRIFFIN, JAMES HILLMAN, TOM HODGKINSON, HENRY & DAREN KIMSEY-HOUSE, JANE MAXWELL, VICKI ROBIN, BABRIELLE ROTH, and ALICE WATER, DONELLA MEADOWS, BILL McKIBBEN
Rating:
Summary: 61 Sizzling Visions of Hope and Change
Review: This book presents profiles of the most original minds of our time. The Utne Reader editors have outdone themselves with the selection of this compilation. The biographical information is amazing, and the ideas that sprang from those experiences will sweep you away. The book literally cuts across the entire board: Included are scientists, mystics, activists, business leaders, talk show hosts, poets, dissidents, musicians, novelits, Buddhists, rabbis, economists, bankers, futurists, jazz singers, environmentalists, architects, community organizers, feminists, dissenters, book clubers, journalits, conservationists, philosphers, healers, dancers, and America's leading Idler. A small sample of some these amazing people: * THOMAS BERRY: Catholic priest, environmental philosopher, grandfather of the religious ecology movement. "We have a moral sense of suicide, homocide, and genocide, but no moral sense of biocide or geocide, the killing of the life systems themselves..." * NOAM CHOMSKY: After Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud comes Chomsky on the most quoted top ten list. As you can see, he is the only living person on the list, making him numero uno in the land of the living. Linguist, political analyst, and America's most prominent dissident. * THICH NHAT HANH: Described as a "living Buddha." "Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it." * SATISH KUMAR: Magazine editor, global wander, and advocate of spiritual ecology. "There is a dance between what you know and what you don't know. The place of mystery is the essential ingredient." * ZALMAN SCHACHTER-SHALOMI: Radically genius, dancing spiritualist, LSD-imbibing rabbi scholar, and flagstaff leader of the "psycho-eco-spiritual revolution of our millennial age." * STARHAWK: Pagan, feminist, author, activist, protestor, rejuvenator of rituals in American life. "And by 'sacred' what I mean is not a great something that you bow down to, but what determines your values, what you would take and stand for." * FRANCES MOORE LAPPE: Author of "Diet for A Small Planet," chronicler of community activism across the country, promoter of public life. "I made a vow to myself that I would never do anything else again in my life until I understood how it related to the underlying causes of human suffering." * HELENA NORBERG-HODGE: Advocate of alternative development, defender of global diversity and local culture, founder of the Ladakh Project, a group dedicated to helping Ladakhis understand that they can choose which of the Western ways they want to adopt and which of the traditional ways they want to keep. "The destructive global economy exists only as long as we are prepared to accept it and subsidize it. We can reject it." * JOHN PAPWORTH: Human-scale advocate, former assistant to the president of Zambia, "shoplifting vicar," and protestor of "car madness." "There is surely reason to suppose that local people running their own neighborhood are far more likely to do what is decent than government ministers trapped in the entrails of power mongering on a mass scale." * JIM HIGHTOWER: Self-described populist, radio personality, former Texas commissioner of agriculture. "It won't be long before your church alter is adorned with a flashing neon sign hustling St. Joseph's aspirin." * WINONA LaDUKE: Anishinaabe nationalist, Green Party vice presidential candidate, founder of the White Earth Recovery Project. "We all need to choose some ground and stick to it." * GEOFF MULGAN: Policy adviser to British prime-minister Tony Blair, founder of the Demos think tank, and chronicler of connectedness. "The most pressing social problems no longer stem from an absence of freedom, but rather from too much freedom that leads to antisocial and self-destructive behavior..." * MUHAMMAD YUNUS: Founder of the Grameen Bank and "micro-credit," champion of women, and economist. "I avoid grandiose plans." * FRITJOF CAPRA: Ecological philosopher, physicist, and ecoliteracy advocate. "The environment is no longer one of many 'single issues': it is the context of everything else-our lives, our business, our politics." * THEO COLBORN: Scientist, formulator of important theory about chemicals disrupting our endocrine systems. "Every one of you is carrying at least five hundred measurable chemicals in your body that were never in anybody's body before the 1920s." * EDWARD GOLDSMITH: Green firebrand, founder of "The Ecologist" magazine, crusader against the global economy. "Nearly everyone today seems to accept the preposterous view that modern man is actually 'improving' the world..." * PAUL HAWKEN: Entrepreneur, green businessman, and prophet of a sustainable economy. Advocates nothing short of replacing our "throw-away" culture with a "closed-loop system". * HAZEL HENDERSON: Futurist, sustainable-development advocate, self-taught economist. "If I had been inducted into Economics 101, I would have suffered brain damage." * WILLIAM McDONOUGH: Architect, industrial designer, and pioneer of the next industrial revolution. "The model for the next industrial revolution may have well been right in front of us the whole time: a tree."
Other profiles include: KENNY AUSUBEL & AND NINA SIMONS, ANDREW KIMBRELL, DAVID MORIS, ANDRES DUANY & ELIZABETH PLATER-ZYBERK, STEPHAN AND ONDREA LEVINE, VIRGINIA VALENTINE, MICHAEL LIND, ROBERTA BRANDES GRATZ, JANE JACOBS, GARY DELGADO, TED HALSTEAD, RIANE EISLER, COLIN GREER, BELL HOOKS, JERRY MANDER, ERNESTO CORTES JR, THEOADORE ROSZAK, CHARLENE SPRETNAK, GLORIA ANZALDUA, OCTAVIA BUTLER, EDUARDO GALEANO, GEORGE GERBNER, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, KALLE LASN, BOBBY McFERRIN, BILL MOYERS, NEIL POSTMAN, RACHEL ROSENTHAL, JOHN RALSTON SAUL, WILLIAM STRICKLAND, LARRY DOSSEY, CHELLIS GLENDINNING, SUSAN GRIFFIN, JAMES HILLMAN, TOM HODGKINSON, HENRY & DAREN KIMSEY-HOUSE, JANE MAXWELL, VICKI ROBIN, BABRIELLE ROTH, and ALICE WATER, DONELLA MEADOWS, BILL McKIBBEN
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