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Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Hawken
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 1382
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 Hawkens many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire all who despair of the worlds fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
Loved this book May 3, 2008
I heard about Paul Hawken few weeks ago and I decided to buy his book. I just feel that I learnt so much, the information is clear, the writing is great. Loved the image of the immune system as a comparison of the reaction of people who fight for Human Rights, Environment, Culture, Language, etc. I just want to read more now about these subjects. (sorry for the mistakes)
 Something new under the sun April 30, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
A few years ago, activist author Paul Hawken set out to create a database of every non-profit in the world categorized into a taxonomy, which is now on the web in a sort of Wikipedia community format at wiserearth (dot) org - This had never really been done before and he was surprised by the sheer number of organizations working independently to make the world a better place. He found a common thread that all were concerned about the environment and human justice. From this he concluded that there is a global "movement" (a word with many qualifiers) the likes of which have never been seen. He compares it to the "Industrial Revolution" - at the time everyone knew something different was happening, but no one had a name for it or even described it as a unique event, it was both everywhere and unrecognized. Likewise, according to Hawken, this global movement is from the ground up, with no core ideology or leadership, it's an historical mass movement that has snuck up on us and only now being recognized as a major shift.
I think Hawken's message is a powerful one and will appeal to the millions of people working in small groups in isolation against large and powerful forces. Hawken does in fact describe a new trend that has been observed by others: the recent rise, proliferation and influence of NGOs. Hawken contends top-down organizations led by ideologies are old school 20th century, the future is distributed small organic holistic, sort of like how Wikipedia is made, millions of individuals (small and large NGOs) contributing expertise on a local basis that has the net effect of global human and environmental justice.
I had some problems with the book, it is clearly a one-sided manifesto and much of it is historical anecdote of well known incidents (the Bolivian water wars, the India coke pesticide case, etc..) and presents a single side. These issues are extremely complex, it is rarely so easy to say there are good and bad guys, it is harmful IMO to present these controversial issues so one-sided and hold them up as poster children for reform. Why not look at the real undisputed success stories that everyone can get behind? He does in some cases such as Rachel Carson's fight against DDT. Overall I was touched by Hawken's passion,
vision and (ironically) his idealism.
Blessed Book April 17, 2008
I am giving this book to many friends who care about social justice and the critical issues facing the environment. Paul Hawken has made a clear case for citizen activism that combines a commitment to both, noting that planet Earth is an endangered species, particularly from global warming but also from the exploitation of its resources. His history of the environmental movement and the appendix, which lists a myriad of groups doing important environmental justice work, makes this a very important book.
A message of hope for the future April 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It almost always happens, when I speak in telephone conferences with university classes or with larger groups, that someone will ask if I have hope for the future and, if so, why. My answer has always been an intuitive one, the intuition being that in the last fifteen years or so awareness of the perils we face in the immediate future has expanded explosively-and that this in itself provides authentic hope for the future.
In Blessed Unrest Paul Hawken, with his extraordinary passion for information, has transformed my mere intuition into a reality. Acting on the same "hunch" as mine, he "began to count. . . . I initially estimated a total of 30,000 environmental organizations around the globe; when I added social justice and indigenous peoples' rights organizations, the number exceeded 100,000. . . . I now believe there are over one-and maybe even two-million organizations working toward ecological sustainability and social justice."
He concludes this encyclopedic work with these heartening words: "There is no question that the environmental movement is critical to our survival. Our house is literally burning, and it is only logical that environmentalists expect the social justice movement to get on the environmental bus. But it is the other way around: the only way we are going to put out the fire is to get on the social justice bus and heal our wounds, because in the end, there is only one bus. Armed with that growing realization, we can address all that is harmful externally. What will guide us is a living intelligence that creates miracles every second, carried forth by a movement with no name."
blessed optimism April 5, 2008
A book anybody who cares about living creatures and our universe should read. It shows how an amazing number of people in both small and large groups are getting together to try and make a difference. Inspiring and filled with hope which in these often dark days is uplifting. As good and important a book as will ever be written.
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