Edited by Rick Docksai
The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods by John McKnight and Peter Block. Berrett-Koehler. 2010. 173 pages. $26.95.
Avid consumerism became a societal trend in the early twentieth century, and since then “keeping up with the Joneses” has impacted life in many harmful ways, according to social-policy professor John McKnight and workplace consultant Peter Block in The Abundant Community. They argue that the marketplace has essentially replaced the community in most people’s minds, and thus people’s neighborhoods no longer satisfy their emotional needs.
The incessant drive to buy and consume requires huge corporations, health-care infrastructures, and thousands of different types of specialists to feed it. People work nonstop and rely on specialists to look after their health, maintain their homes, keep their neighborhoods in order, and care for their children. Families spend less time together, neighbors scarcely know each other, and relationships become shallow and utilitarian.
Should consumerism persist, the health of communities everywhere will suffer greatly, the authors warn. No neighborhood can effectively prevent crime, educate its youth, create jobs, keep parks clean, and ensure that the elderly, the poor, and other people in need are cared for unless its residents work together to make all these things happen.
McKnight and Block hold out hope that communities everywhere will rediscover their own nonmaterial abundance and relearn how to create vibrant community life. They conclude by laying out the values a community must adopt to achieve this.
The Abundant Community is an in-depth evaluation of twenty-first-century society and the values that define it. Community activists, organizers, and leaders of all kinds will find it deeply meaningful.
Acceleration: The Forces Driving Human Progress by Ronald Havelock. Prometheus. 2011. 363 pages. $28.
Humanity has much to look forward to in this century, argues technology consultant Ronald Havelock in Acceleration. He describes a sweeping transformation of human life by 2050: longer life spans, growing knowledge platforms, swelling ranks of scientists and engineers, exponentially more powerful computers, and the diffusion of a more inclusive human ethics.
Havelock identifies a powerful “Forward Function”—movement of societal and technological progress—that he says has been active throughout human history. Progress has been especially great over the last 60 years due to an array of new forces: expanded learning, increased information storage capacity, the evolution of social networking, a larger division of labor in the service of problem solving, more sophisticated problem-solving processes, and immensely enhanced power to distribute knowledge via media.
For the first time in human history, individual groups of researchers, producers, distributors, and consumers are all continuously connected. These ties of communication will bring all more closely into alignment and enable them to work together to make more rapid and consistent innovation.
Pessimism about the future still runs deep, Havelock notes. Vast numbers of people believe that the future will be grim. Havelock encourages a more positive outlook: Pessimism not only lowers quality of life, but it also slows the Forward Function. He remains confident that the Forward Function will stay on course for as long as there is a human species and will continue to improve human life.
Acceleration is an upbeat philosophical perspective on humanity’s past, present, and future. Audiences from all walks of life will find it thought-provoking and inspirational.
Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible by Daniel Burrus with John David Mann. HarperBusiness. 2011. 268 pages. $27.95.
We’ve all had moments of “flash foresight”—i.e., intuitive grasps of what is to come—says executive consultant Daniel Burrus in Flash Foresight, written with business journalist John David Mann. The challenge, Burrus adds, is to know when to act on it; sometimes this foresight is counterintuitive and requires doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing.
You exercise flash foresight when you look to the future and try to discern what you already know. Then, once you’ve established your certainties, you attempt to fill in the uncertainties. There is much about the future that we can predict in advance, Burrus says.
He describes real-life examples of people who exercised flash foresight to solve real problems. Apple Computers’ leadership used it to resurge from market failure to market domination. The phone company Mobile Telephone Networks used it to create burgeoning cell-phone markets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. And Burrus claims to have used it in the early 1980s to accurately predict the digital revolution, the explosive growth of fiber-optic cable networks, and the sequencing of the human genetic code by the year 2000.
Burrus also points out examples of people who failed to use it. They include the heads of General Motors, who had a hugely successful company in the mid-twentieth century but faced collapse and federal takeover in 2008.
Flash Foresight presents helpful case studies in how decision makers in any industry can more effectively shed light on their futures.
Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin. Berrett-Koehler. 2010. 232 pages. Paperback. $16.95.
Conservation of the earth is integral to Islam, argues Muslim author and policy advisor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin. He presents multiple examples of what Muslims are doing and can do to improve human stewardship of the planet and its resources.
These include “green” mosques that incorporate sustainability into their architecture; urban and suburban food gardens that flourish in some Muslim neighborhoods; and Alpujarra, a Muslim community in Mexico that draws all of its energy from localized solar and wind generators.
There are also individual Muslims who are leading sustainability changes in their own communities, such as Adnan Durrani, an organic food pioneer, and Qaid Hassan, an entrepreneur who delivers fresh produce to low-income communities in Chicago. Also, the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, a Chicago nonprofit, operates a Green Reentry Project that helps recently incarcerated men transition into green jobs.
None of the examples above is an anomaly, Abdul-Matin asserts. He notes that Muhammad, Islam’s foremost prophet, once said that “The Earth is a Mosque, and everything on it is sacred.” Abdul-Matin points to many verses in the Koran pertaining to daily living and how each actually contributes to solving global problems of energy use, food distribution, water supplies, and waste. He further explains how these teachings can be useful and relevant to anyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who is concerned about the environment’s long-term health.
Green Deen offers a new perspective on Islam—the world’s second-largest religion—and its potential as a force for positive worldwide change. Secular and religious audiences of all faith traditions may find it informative and enlightening.
The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu. Knopf. 2010. 366 pages. $27.95.
Since the invention of the telephone, every information technology has evolved along a similar trajectory, says Tim Wu, chairman of the media reform organization Free Press, in The Master Switch. He calls this trajectory “The Cycle.”
At first, the technology is an open system that is controlled by no one and subject to extensive innovation by many different developers. Over time, however, one corporation or entity gains exclusive control. Then the technology becomes a “closed system,” and innovation grinds to a halt.
He traces the Cycle as it played out during the twentieth century in film, telecommunications, and broadcast media. Key industry players took over each market, and the outcomes were blander media content, stifled individual expression, and fewer choices for consumers.
The Internet is still an open system, Wu adds. But there are signs that it, too, could fall under centralized control. The consequences would be staggering, given that information industries are integral to almost every aspect of our lives.
Wu advises against aggressive government regulation of information markets. At the same time, he insists that those who develop information, those who own the networks on which it travels, and those who control the tools of information access must all be kept separate from each other. Government must also remain vigilant against excessively large corporate mergers. These basic checks are vital, Wu argues, to prevent any one corporation from becoming the sole arbiter of what consumers see and hear online.
The Master Switch is a provocative thesis on where the Internet has come from and where it is headed. It will interest technology enthusiasts and all who value a vibrant media market.
My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer Sternberg. Prometheus. 2010. 244 pages. Paperback. $21.
As neuroscientists learn more about the influences that the brain’s neurons and neurotransmitters have, difficult questions arise over how much control people really have over their lives, according to Tufts University medical student Eliezer Sternberg in My Brain Made Me Do It.
Some neurologists believe that human behavior is entirely predetermined by brain chemistry and that free will does not really exist. Many philosophers object strongly to this viewpoint, however. They hold that to deny free will is to reduce human beings to mindless machines without capacity for moral responsibility.
Sternberg presents both sides and then concludes with his own nuanced view: The brain influences behavior, but it does not determine it. Humans still have the capacity to make their own decisions. Referencing numerous studies of brain activity, brain hormones, and mental disorders, he constructs the complex process of human decision making and the multiple factors—emotional, hormonal, logical, and situational—that underlie it.
Sternberg recasts complex theories about the human brain and human behavior in simple terms that almost any audience will readily grasp. My Brain Made Me Do It will be an engaging read for scientists and lay readers alike.
Thriving in the Crosscurrent: Clarity and Hope in a Time of Cultural Sea Change by James Kenney. Quest. 2010. 253 pages. Paperback. $16.95.
A cultural sea change is under way across the globe, says interfaith activist Jim Kenney in Thriving in the Crosscurrent. Old beliefs and new beliefs are clashing, and the end result will be the prevalence of cultural values that are better attuned to current realities.
Ethnocentric values—sexism, racism, war, materialism, greed, and exploitation of the environment—are receding. And world-centered values—gender partnership, intercultural dialogue, religious pluralism, nonviolence, spiritual awareness, social justice, and environmental justice—are taking their place.
At least three such sea changes have taken place in human history: the rise of agriculture, the emergence of the major Eastern and Western religious traditions, and the Copernican realization that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Each one signified a profound shift in human understanding and an affirmation of interdependence and creative complexity.
Kenney points out concrete examples of the sea change in academia, the nonprofit world, contemporary politics, and other areas of life. He describes current reactionary forces opposing change, but argues that the new values will ultimately prevail.
Readers who worry about humanity’s future will find in Thriving in the Crosscurrent a compelling case for hope.
The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd. HarperCollins. 2011. 294 pages. $26.99.
The Millennial generation—all those born between 1977 and 1997—will constitute nearly half the world’s workforce by 2014, according to workplace consultant Jeanne Meister and Sun Microsystems vice president Karie Willyerd in The 2020 Workplace. They call on employers to plan now for a new paradigm in how and where people will work, the skills they will offer, and the technologies they will use to communicate.
Workforces will exhibit greater diversity in age, gender, and ethnicity, the authors forecast. Also, due to the proliferation of virtual communications, more offices will consist of employees who are dispersed across remote corners of the globe. Professionals everywhere will have far more options as to how, where, when, and for whom they work—provided that they produce results. Leadership will have to be more global, culturally aware, and skilled at building alliances and sharing authority.
The authors describe the unique values that will set the Millennial workforce apart—such as freedom, personal choice, collaboration, corporate integrity, and innovation—and how these priorities will influence their professional lives. They advise employers on how to best engage this new generation while still keeping their senior employees satisfied.
Workplace managers and leaders in practically any industry or sector may find The 2020 Workplace to be a helpful guide to how they can prepare their workplaces for success in the world of 2020.