| Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 48 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2596
Category: Book
Author: Paul Hawken
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0143113658
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.72
EAN: 9780143113652
ASIN: 0143113658
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The New York Times bestselling examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change
Paul Hawken has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media.
Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries of hidden history. A culmination of Hawken?s many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire all who despair of the world?s fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
 A Prodigious Work... September 18, 2008
Really a three minus... I have a good vocabulary but still found I required a dictionary close at hand to make it through this book. Although there is much good information here, it can be read in a number of other books that are more accessible and deliver the data in a more concise manner. I love exact words and have no problem with learning more, but when used more to impress than elucidate, as it seems here, I am underwhelmed.
And who said "no one saw it coming?" I find that underwhelming hyperbole - maybe Paul failed to see it coming, and maybe he is in the majority, but it is preposterous to slam those who toil in these fields with that broad brush. Some activists have worked consciously to support and even create the blessed unrest that Paul purport's to announce to us as invisible. This problem continues through the length of the book: what Paul describes as a hidden phenomena and unabashedly rips away the veil for us, the supposed blind, might be HIS epiphany, but it is not universal. Paul has discovered a true thing of beauty, it's just several years after the fact. (Do not misread me: This IS a beauteous and wonderful thing and it IS exciting and we DO need to acknowledge we are on the very lip of an abyss that needs our attention NOW. I do not quarrel with this.)
I review books for Touch the Soil magazine (touchthesoil.com) and so I wade through a number of books in this general genre monthly. Blessed Unrest is the kind of work that belongs on reference shelves everywhere because the catalog of organizations he has compiled is a marvelous snapshot in time. But it is not 'required reading.' Nor did I find it compelling reading.
The web of connections made in this book IS lovely. He does have some points to make; it is not a worthless book, nor do I believe the author consciously misleads. I believe however that you can find the same information in other books (which are authored by writers who presumably saw 'it' coming) and are a much better read.
If you want vocabulary, however...
david
 not deep and logical enough, more like a summary of thoughts and ideas instead of providing a coherent view or framework September 14, 2008
First, the book promoted me to think about what the social change would have been in the past for different cultures if it was carried out in peace.
To help you understand what I mean, let me elaborate a little. With technology breakthrough, the whole planet is becoming smaller and thus different cultures come closer to each other. A lot of collision happened when different cultures "discovered" each other. In reality, it had been a very bloody history. In the past, you won if you were better at killing people. The history of mankind was mostly driven by this force. Because this destructive force was so dominant, other peaceful forces (for example the force of knowledge or skills) cannot be fully functioning. That is why we don't need any war, and we should live by peace. Thus I try to imagine how the history would have been if people had dealt with each other peacefully when different cultures came closer to each other.
In peace time, history is driven by the real essential human needs. And it is from grassroots level, instead of being dictated by a few people (who get the power by being better at killing people). Imagine how different cultures (the Native Americans, the Africans, the east, the west) might have communicated and learned from each other if all the changes are happening during peace time. (The Native Americans' agriculture society don't have t be totally destroyed.) It is too bad that we went through a very bloody period when different cultures encountered each other. I believe it is possible for different cultures to learn from each other and adapt for its own interest if people are empowered (instead of letting the direction of the history being dictated by a few people who are just better at killing other people).
In this sense, Internet and web are helping making the peaceful force more powerful.
How this implies for China's current social change? China is now going through a process of modernization. This process, for a large part, is also a process of westernization. Although you can say the process is mostly happening under peace (for example, there is no war), in reality non-peaceful force is still dominant in the society, thus preventing real peaceful forces from functioning. For example, let individuals decide what is best for themselves, what they want to learn. In this sense, it is not about eastern or western. It is about how to live better as a human being.
Other than these thoughts this book provoked, here are some good things I noted down about the book when I was reading along.
The book takes a more holistic view, treating the whole planet as an organism. This is very right. And I regard this as a self-reflection of the western culture.
The book uses biology as its major inspiration and draws a lot of analogies between human society and biology. This certainly should be appreciated. When I was studying biology, I was always fascinated by the wonder of nature and its implication for human being's social life. For example, there are many kinds of cells in the body. What kind of cell a cell becomes is totally dependent on the environment it is in and all the stress and stretch that is applied to the cell.
The book pointed out the PLAYING is what this is about. (page 187). "Play is infinite game. Competition is finite game." It is a weird way to put it, and really not very logical. But anyway.
It also points out LOVE too, saying this should be what human life is about.
I think he should add BEAUTY too. Playing, love, and beauty are the kind of forces that I referred above as the peaceful forces.
In general, I don't feel this book is deep enough. It is kind of a mess in its logic. There are a lot of numbers, but not much making sense of the numbers. However, it would be useful to get to know some events that happened in each movement and some names of the people. The book is more like a summary of thoughts and ideas instead of providing something new, a coherent view or framework. I had expected more.
For people who work in the same field, this book should provide a lot of info that you can look into to help build a complete picture. There are a lot of useful information in this book, and this book shouldnot be overlooked.
I would give this book 3.5. But considering it touching such an important topic, I will give it 4 to encourage more people to read such kind of books.
 Inspiring rhetoric, disappointing analysis August 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Some of my friends found this book really inspiring. I tend to look for things like detailed and balanced analysis of issues, in-depth descriptions of the work of political groups, and sophisticated understanding of the way in which voluntary organizations interact with elite politics and economic factors. This book is weak on all of those - but it DOES have a lot of inspirational rhetoric.
We must work together if life on this planet is going to survive August 6, 2008
Paul Hawken has a wonderful gift of pattern recognition that enables him to draw from diverse sources and sew together a patchwork of information that is compelling in its message: We must work together if life on this planet as we know it today is going to survive the threats of devaluation of individual life, depleted resources, pollution and global heating. (Heating is my term. I feel that `warming' is an unacceptable euphemism!)What is most appealing to me after the excellent summary of facts and issues is Hawken's positive spin on the situation.
When asked at colleges if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven't got a heart. What I see are ordinary and some not-so-ordinary individuals willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in an attempt to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. (p. 4)
Healing the wounds of the earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party, only gumption and persistence. It is not a liberal or conservative activity; it is a sacred act. (p. 5)
In total, the book is inadvertently optimistic, an odd thing in these bleak times. I didn't intend it; optimism discovered me. (p. 8)
Hawken points out that the roots of our problems lie in our concepts and attitudes about our world. For instance, production and acquisition of material goods has become the primary focus and goal of the modern world, to the point that they are more important than people. This has shaped our mentality in self-destructive ways. Mass production and distribution of products become more economical and profitable through uniformity. Living systems thrive best on diversity, which provides a gene pool that can adapt to external challenges. However, in the name of enhancing efficiency of food production, distribution and sales, our diversity has been sacrificed and the biological pool of genetic resources has been systematically whittled down to the cheapest and most marketable varieties of edibles. This mind-set is core to the struggles of our modern world between the interests of business and industry and the interests of people and the environment.
In the pursuit of industrial and economic growth that has assumed the proportions of an ideology, natural resources have been over-exploited to the point that they are depleted. Our fish, trees, land and waters have been wantonly exploited, with little if any thought to the needs of tomorrow, much less to those of future generations. Similarly with people:
Slaves, serfs, and the poor are the forests, soils, and oceans of society; each constitutes surplus value that has been exploited repeatedly by those in power, whether governments or multinational corporations. (p. 22)
Trade is not the salient issue; the critical question is, Who sets the rules and who enforces them? There can be no sustainability when institutions whose primary purpose is to create money are dictating the standards. (p. 135)
As a uniform trading system sweeps over the world, the monetary gains are called GDP, but the losses that are suffered, even in the industrialized West, much less in the Third World, are not tallied, as if one were recording sales at the cash register but ignoring thefts at the back of the warehouse. (p. 118)
The World Trade Organization (WTO) seeks to establish commerce as the basis for governing the world. It is set up without checks and balances, as a dictatorial institution that can override local populations' wishes and needs.
The purpose of the organization could not be simpler: the eliminations of constraints on the flow of trade, including how a product is made, by whom it is made, or what happens after it is made. By doing so, WTO removes individual countries; and regions; ability to set standards, to express values, or to determine what they do or do not support if those standards conflict with WTO rules. (p. 120)
In all WTO rulings one common denominator prevails, and the denominator is money. (p. 129)
The severity of the challenges has spawned both awareness and action groups. Hawken gives brief discursive summaries of several dozens of these, and many more as annotated references.
The exponential assault on resources and the production of waste, coupled with the extirpation of cultures and the exploitation of workers, is a disease as surely as hepatitis or cancer. It is sponsored by a political-economic system of which we are all a part, and any finger-pointing is inevitably directed back to ourselves. There may be no particular they there, but the system is still a disease, even if we created and contracted it. Because a lot of people know we are sick and want to treat the cause, not just the symptoms, the environmental movement can be seen as humanity's response to contagious policies killing the earth, while the social justice movement addresses economic and legislated pathogens that destroy families, bodies, cultures, and communities. (p. 145)
Action groups work at different levels to promote a saner, sustainable world:
Watch organizations - monitor governmental institutions, corporations and geographically sensitive areas
Keeper groups - advocate for the preservation of waters and all their users
Networks - combine the information, knowledge and action focus of like-minded groups
For example:
The US Green Building Council (USGBC) promotes awareness of, use, and distribution of building materials that do not deplete or harm the environment.
"Slow Food (alimento lento) is the long overdue response to dead food, processed food, fast food, agribusiness..." (p. 155)
Microloans help to bring hardworking people out of poverty. Kiva.org brokers loans on line.
Hawken points out that every one of us bears a responsibility to participate in addressing these problems. The two basic rules to guide us must be the Golden Rule and the Sacredness of All Life. We must aim for a `zero-waste society" or better, a restorative one.
We will either come together as one, globalized people, or we will disappear as a civilization. To come together we must know our place in a biological and cultural sense, and reclaim our role as engaged agents of our continued existence. (p. 165)
I cannot recommend this book highly enough - to anyone interested in contributing to healing our modern societal illnesses and insanities and saving our world.
 A book full of hope August 2, 2008
This is a wonderfully documented guide about groups working for social justice and for bringing balance and restoring our planet's seriously damaged environment.
Among many issues, Paul Hawken tells us that fighting for those important objectives, ideology or partisan politics play a secondary role, because civilization survival is on the balance and people's direct involvement is vital.
Saving Earth and bringing social justice to all must have priority over short term goals, such as profit maximizing via externilizing costs to society.
The road for the largest social movement in history is long and full of powerful obstacles. That is why social and ecological education along with democratic participation are crucial. After all, real democracy is built from the bottom up and not the other way around, as the political establishment wants us to believe.
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