2011, 192pp, £9.25 incl. p/p
Price: £9.25
Price: £11.40
Also reprinted with a new forward, this remarkable book is relevant today and its many themes as pertinent and thought-provoking as when it was first published. The book looks at the economic structure of the Western world in a revolutionary way. Schumacher maintains that Man's current pursuit of profit and progress, which promotes giant organisations and increased specialization, has in fact resulted in gross economic inefficiency, environmental pollution and inhumane working conditions. He challenges the doctrine of economic, technological and scientific specialization and proposes a system of Intermediate Technology, based on smaller working units, communal ownership, and regional workplaces utilizing local labour and resources.
2011, 288pp, £10.25 incl p/p
Price: £10.25
Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Thrilling and revelatory, "The Shock Doctrine" cracks open the secret history of our era.
Exposing these global profiteers, she discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors' beliefs now dominate our world - and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.
2008 576pp £10.50 inlc p/p
Price: £10.50
2008 240pp £14.95 incl p/p
Price: £14.95
2008. 205pp £16.50 Incl. p/p
Price: £16.50
"There is a big problem with the economy, namely that it is disconnected from both ecology and equity." So begins Satish Kumar in his introduction to this informal account of a think-tank held a Schumacher College that met in an attempt to seek an economic renaissance.
2008. 47pp. £5.50 Incl. p/p
Price: £5.50
For millions of years, humankind has used a brilliantly successful survival strategy. If we like something, we chase after more of it: more status, more food, more info, more stuff. Then we chase again. It's how we survived famine, disease and disaster to colonise the world. But now, thanks to technology, we've suddenly got more of everything than we can ever use, enjoy or afford. That doesn't stop us from striving though and it's making us sick, tired, overweight, angry and in debt. It burns up our personal ecologies and the planet's ecology too. We urgently need to develop a sense of 'enough'. Our culture keeps telling us that we don't yet have all we need to be happy, but in fact we need to nurture a new skill -- the ability to bask in the bounties all around us. ENOUGH explores how our Neolithic brain-wiring spurs us to build a world of overabundance that keeps us hooked on 'more'. John explains how, through adopting the art of enoughness, we can break from this wrecking cycle.
2008 304pp £9.50 incl p/p
Price: £9.50
…shows how, more than ever before, and perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, our children are being tracked and
targeted by big business, which sells them back their dreams, packages their childhood and exploits their vulnerabilities. It looks at why children torture their Barbies, how boys feel about David Beckham, why mums are cooler than dads, why children in the toughest families make the most ardent consumers and why, above all, too much marketing makes you unhappy. This hard-hitting expose is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the deeper implications of the runaway commercial world we live in.
2009 378pp £10.50 incl. p/p
Price: £10.50
Many people feel that money and what we perceive as the psyche, or soul, are bitter enemies - do we choose money or soul, finance or feelings, markets or commonhumanity? This book traces the origins of these opposing concepts, and the feelings that money provokes. Economic ideas often stand out as being universal, globallyvalid and without cultural ties. But money is narrative and image just as much as it is a means of exchange and of preserving wealth. By viewing money asculture and philosophy, it becomes evident that the money of today is a system of symbols, something that society itself has devised over many centuries. Having considered the nature of money and psyche, the author asks how our culture makes us feel and think about them; and proposes how the framework around money can be expanded. This develops the idea of extended accounting to include natural and
social capital in addition to the manufactured capital we are used to entering in the accounts - currently to the exclusion of all else. Money and Soul opens up new methods of looking at, thinking about and using money. It points to a future where our ideas about money will be greatly expanded, and there will be different kinds of money, with different social purposes, in circulation. “The need for new ideas has never been more pressing….Now is precisely the time to start thinking very differently indeed - and Per Espen Stoknes certainly rises to that particular challenge.” Jonathan Porritt.
2009 297 £14.50 incl p/p
Price: £14.50
Shows how local money can help unleash the financial power of communities to build a resilient, low carbon future. An inspiring yet practical new book, it helps you understand what money is and what makes good and bad money. It draws on the considerable track record of experimentation with local money around the world and gives ideas to those in the Transition movement and beyond about what has been tried, what works, and what to avoid.
2010, 192pp, £14.95 incl p/p
Price: £14.95
Schumacher College, set up as an international centre for ecological and spiritual studies, has developed a worldwide reputation for the quality of the unique learning experience it offers. Individuals and groups come from across the world to learn about subjects relating to environmental and social sustainability. Students are often so inspired that many express a wish to set up similar
organisations elsewhere in the world. Educators and trainers ask how the College was set up, what the magic ingredients were, and what students have done after having been there. This book is an attempt to answer those questions, and describes how the College came to be setup by The Dartington Hall Trust in Devon, England. It explains the policies and practices adopted to ensure that the learning processes were consistent with - and reinforced - the topics being studied. It includes examples of what former students have gone on to do, and reflections on the College by visiting teachers including Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, Wolfgang Sachs and David Orr. This book could be used as a guide to design a place of holistic learning: the key is to remember the ecological principle of context, and to apply liberal doses of local wisdom.
2208 141pp £11.00 incl p/p
Price: £11.00
This pocket guide explains how you can: - Reduce carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels - Encourage leaders to make wise decisions - Buildcommunity relationships It also explains what the Transition movement is, its aims and gives pointers for how you can get involved with your local Transition initiative, or guide you to set up your own if you don't already have one. The book provides resources and examples of Transition initiatives throughout the UK.
2010, 108pp £5.95 incl p/p
Price: £5.95
An astonishing, galvanizing book that tells the story of all the 'stuff' we use everyday - where our bottled water, mobile phones and jeans come from, how they're made and distributed, and where they really go when we throw them away. Our out-of-control consumption habits are killing the planet and threatening our health, but Annie Leonard provides hope that change is within reach.
2010, 256pp, £10.85 incl p/p
Price: £10.85
Reveals the vital importance of understanding our early emotional lives, arguing that by focusing on the attention we give to
our children we can create a better society. We have come to inhabit a culture of selfish individualism which has confused material well-being with happiness. As society became bigger and more competitive, working life was cut off from child-rearing and the new economics ignored people's emotional needs. We have lived with this culture so long that it is hard to imagine it being any different. Yet we are now at a turning point where the need for change is becoming urgent. If we are to build a more reflective and collaborative society, Gerhardt argues, we need to support the caring qualities that are learnt in early life and integrate them into our political and economic thinking.
2010, 400pp, £14.50 incl p/p
Price: £14.50
Continues the work of Small is Beautiful, emphasizing small-scale, indigenous, sustainable alternatives to globalization. Sulak offers hope and alternatives for restructuring our economies based on Buddhist principles and personal development. He sees Buddhism as a questioning process. Question everything, including oneself, look deeply, and then act from that insight.
2009, 102ppm £10.25 incl p/p
Price: £10.25
"A story filled with joy, intrigue, courage and adventure." Satish Kumar
2009, 416pp, £12.95 incl p/p
Price: £12.95
Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? The answer to these and other questions: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show: how almost everything - from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy - is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is; that societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off; and, how we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future. Described as urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, this book has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way we see the world.
2010, 368pp £11.75 incl p/p
Price: £11.75
We live in a time of disenchantment with the political formula of conservative, liberal, labour, communist, and need a reframed view of the issues we currently face . This book explores how a radically revised view of the nature of the person can be linked more intelligently to the political system, and how both require an awareness that we live in a mysterious and awesome universe. "You must read this book. If you are interested in political philosophy you will find it fascinating. If you are not interested you soon will be." Jean Boulton
2011, 222pp, £14.50 incl p/p
****Post free to Greenspirit members at £12.99. Please put a note in Customer Comments on the order form to say you are a member and postage will be deducted when the order is processed.****
Price: £14.50
It's time to rethink our attitudes to work. For too long we have convinced ourselves that the only jobs worth doing involve sitting at a desk. Generations of school-leavers head for university lacking the skills to fix or even understand the most basic technology. And yet many of us are not suited to office life, while skilled manual work provides one of the few and most rewarding paths to a secure living. Drawing on the work of our greatest thinkers, from Aristotle to Heidegger, from Karl Marx to Iris Murdoch, as well as on his own experiences as an electrician and motorcycle mechanic, Matthew Crawford's irreverent and inspiring manifesto will maybe change the way you think about work forever.
2010, 256pp, £10.75 incl p/p
Price: £10.75
Flannery is here to offer us a change of perspective. And he is here to inspire us. He invites us to consider again our place on earth, what it really means to be alive. Here on Earth is a revolutionary dual biography of the planet and of our species. Flannery re-imagines the history of earth, from its earliest origins as a chaotic ball of elemental gases to the teeming landscape we currently call home. It is a remarkable story. How did life first emerge here? What forces have shaped it? Why did humans come to dominate? And when did we start to have an impact? More importantly, how has this changed us as a species? The awesome hand of nature has never been better portrayed than in this book. Nor, remarkably, the transformative power of ideas. From the most intense competition for survival, cooperation has emerged. The challenge we now face is to sustain our fragile hold on life. Our fate is in our own hands. But first we have to realise who we are.
2011, 316pp, £16.99 incl p/p
Price: £16.99
"Green Deen" ("deen" means "way" in Arabic) is a call to devotion, prayer, and service. The author reveals how Islam's call to reflection specifically includes reflection on our relationship to the natural world, and he cites scriptural passages that implicitly and explicitly illustrate our collective responsibility to maintain and manage the planet's delicate and intricate systems. If we all hope to save our planet and build stronger interfaith and secular relationships, Abdul-Matin argues, Muslims need to remember they have a history of a green deen, and the rest of us need to build community with eco-friendly Muslims.
2010, 192pp, £12.99
Price: £12.99
Is more economic growth the solution? Will it deliver prosperity and well-being for a global population projected to reach nine billion? Tim Jackson makes a compelling case against continued economic growth in developed nations. No one denies that development is essential for poorer nations. But in the advanced economies there is mounting evidence that ever-increasing consumption adds little to human happiness and may even impede it. More urgently, it is now clear that the ecosystems that sustain our economies are collapsing under the impacts of rising consumption. Unless we can radically lower the environmental impact of economic activity - and there is no evidence to suggest that we can - we will have to devise a path to prosperity that does not rely on continued growth. Jackson provides a credible vision of how human society can flourish - within the ecological limits of a finite planet.
2011, 288pp, £11.99
Price: £11.99
E.F. Schumacher was a key figure in the development of environmentalism in the 20th century, and has left an enduring legacy. A profound thinker who was admired by Keynes, Beveridge and Cripps, he was for many years economic adviser to the Coal Board, and later put his ideas into practice by setting up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) and becoming involved with the Soil Association. He was the inspiration for many other organisations that continue to this day, including the New Economics Foundation and Schumacher College.
This biography by his eldest daughter Barbara has been described as "an excellent biography that does not conceal the warts." - Malcolm Rutherford
2011, 256pp, £14.50 incl p/p
Price: £14.50
Wild Law fuses politics, legal theory, quantum physics and ancient wisdom into a fascinating story. It has been seminal in informing and inspiring the global movement to recognise rights for Nature - a movement destined to shape the twenty-first century as significantly as the human rights movements shaped the twentieth century. This second edition includes a new Postscript detailing recent developments in the field of wild law, and also the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, of which the author led the drafting.
2011, 248pp, £14.75
Price: £14.75
What does it mean to 'downshift'? Why is it now imperative that millions of people begin moving towards a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle? If you, too, are to join this worldwide effort to create a different sort of world, when should you start? How should you set about it? Might you need to move house in order to live more sustainably, and if so, to where? And to whom can you turn for advice and guidance? This easy-to-read guidebook, by an author who undertook a similar journey, aims to answer all these questions and more. It will reassure you that while the downshifting process is not without its challenges, the rewards, in terms of life satisfaction, enjoyment and sense of fulfillment, can be huge. There are many books full of practical ideas for green living. But this one goes to the heart of the matter by looking at who you are, what your needs are and how to create your custom-made plan for a lifestyle perfectly adapted to the coming 'Age of Sustainability'.
2010, 82pp, £7.50
****Post free to Greenspirit members at £6.99. Please put a note in Customer Comments on the order form to say you are a member and postage will be deducted when the order is processed.****
Price: £7.50
In 2008, the bestselling Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral around the world, from Italian villages and Brazilian favelas to universities and London neighbourhoods. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions; on community-scale responses; on meeting new people and having fun. The Transition Companion picks up the story three years later, drawing from the experience of one of the most fascinating experiments under way in the world today. It tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured, where lower energy use is seen as a benefit, and where enterprise, creativity and the building of resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy.
2011, 288pp, £21.95 incl p/p
Price: £21.95
… explains in plain language how money is now working to propel us toward the self-destruction of our species - and what we should do about it. Money is not itself the problem, but, in the way it works at present, it affects us as a diseased blood or brain system affects a living person. Financial experts and leaders in politics, government and business, and most mainstream academic & media commentators, have shown in the past few years that they are not yet able or willing to diagnose and treat the problem. The book clearly shows how the money system works, how it could be reformed so that it acts to the benefit of people and society rather than the opposite, and describes the obstacles that currently prevent a reform of the money system.
2011,192pp, £14.95 incl p/p
Price: £14.95
Schumacher College, based near Totnes in Devon, England, opened its doors in the early 1990s and is now an internationally-renowned centre for transformative learning on all aspects of sustainable living. James Lovelock led the first course on Gaia theory. A host of visionary thinkers has followed, including mathematician and biologist Brian Goodwin, who died in 2009. This book is a realisation of his vision for Schumacher College to publish a collection of essays on sustainable solutions to the current global crisis. Themes include the importance of education, science, Transition thinking, economics, energy sources, business and design, in the context of philosophy, spirituality and mythology. The contributors include Satish Kumar, Jules Cashford, Fritjof Capra, Rupert Sheldrake, James Lovelock, Peter Reason, Gideon Kossoff, Craig Holdrege, Helena Norbert-Hodge, Colin Tudge, Nigel Topping and many others.
2011, 304pp, £22.50 incl p/p
Price: £22.50