Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61817 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 402 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781887208086
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
"An epic work. Exposes the myths that divide us and frames the stories that can bring us together." -- Danny Glover, Activist and Actor

From the Publisher

The Great Turning
From Empire to Earth Community
By David C. Korten

"We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future.... To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth Community with a common destiny."
--The Earth Charter (2000)

David Korten's classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination, and with far greater consequences.

In The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely a contemporary manifestation of what he defines as "Empire"--the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years--fortune for the few and misery for the many. Now, thanks to modern technologies, the way of Empire is increasingly destructive to children, family, community, and nature itself, rapidly leading us all to the brink of worldwide environmental and social collapse.

Korten makes the case that we are a species with the power of choice, and that at this defining moment in history, humanity faces both the opportunity and the imperative to choose our future in a conscious collective manner. A mounting perfect economic storm is fast approaching. A convergence of climate change, the fast approaching peak and decline in oil production, and the financial instability inherent in an unbalanced global trading system will bring an unraveling of the corporate-led global economy and a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life--whether we like it or not.

This unraveling cannot be avoided. We can, however, turn a potentially terminal crisis into an epic opportunity to bring forth a new era of Earth Community grounded in the life-affirming cultural values shared by most all the world's people and eloquently articulated in the Earth Charter.

The Great Turning is an essential resource for those who understand the need for fundamental change. It cuts through the complexity of our time to illuminate a simple, but elegant truth. We humans live by stories. We are held captive to the ways of Empire by a cultural trance of our own creation--indeed, one need look no further than our popular culture and the way it is magnified in TV, movies, and other mass media to see how this paradigm is reflected back upon us all everyday. Changing our future begins with changing our stories in a way that includes our capacities for compassion, cooperation, responsible self-direction, and self-organizing partnership. This is a work already underway, and to succeed, it ultimately will call for the participation of every person on the planet. In The Great Turning, David Korten points the way to the inspiring outcome within our reach.

****

"Here's the book we've been waiting for. We are not doomed to domination and suicidal competition. We can choose another story. This is the `Great Turning.'"
--Joanna Macy, author of Coming Back to Life

"An epic work. Exposes the myths that divide us and frames the stories that can bring us together."
--Danny Glover, activist and actor

"The Great Turning is a work of amazing scope and depth. This is a wise and much needed book that shows we can create cultures where our enormous human capacities for joy, caring, and cooperation are realized."
--Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade

"Employing history, psychology, economics, spirituality, and common sense, Korten not only critiques the dilemma we are in as a species, he also shows us doable and workable ways out of our morass. This book is a kind of Bible to the 21st century, a revelation of where we might travel if we have the moral imagination and the courage to choose and act wisely. Bravo!"
--Matthew Fox, educator and theologian, author of Original Blessing and A New Reformation

"David Korten has produced a masterpiece! Fascinating, compelling, wonderfully readable, and broad reaching in its arc of history and significance, The Great Turning will keep you up nights reading, fill your notebooks with insights, and give you the ammunition to win the water cooler wars."
--Thom Hartmann, Air America Radio talk show host and author of Screwed: The Undeclared War on the Middle Class

"I love this book! David Korten has done it again--created a masterpiece of big thinking to help us find our way in this death-or-life historical moment."
-- Frances Moore Lappé, author of Hope's Edge and Democracy's Edge

"What a gift David Korten has given us with this prophetic book! This is a must-read for activists, for lovers of contemporary American studies, and for Cultural Creatives."
--Paul H. Ray, co-author of The Cultural Creatives

"A must read for everyone who yearns to create a positive human future. The Great Turning is a wise, profound, and practical book filled with fresh insights and is destined to be even more influential than Korten's previous contributions"
-- Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

From the Inside Flap
"Korten cuts through the lies and hypocrisy to show that the rabid right, far from being conservative defenders of family values, is engaged in a war against children, families, communities, democracy, and life. Instead of the self-serving greedheads and boneheads now in charge, imagine a world guided by the deeply held values that most Americans share. The Great Turning has the power to turn our country, and the world, to this more positive course." - Jim Hightower, syndicated columnist and radio host, author of Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush

"David Korten never fails to shake me out of my complacency, and reveal complacencies I didn't even know I had. This work is a stunning and compassionate tour de force, calling on history, science, economics, and our human goodwill to illuminate the fact that we are at a fundamental choice point. I can't stop thinking about the issues he raises, nor what I'm going to do with my awakened consciousness. Thank you, David." - Margaret J. Wheatley, author of the bestsellers Leadership and the New Science and Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

"The Great Turning is a profound and inspiring masterpiece that illuminates the cultural, social, and political significance of the contrasting worldviews of the classic materialistic-mechanistic Newtonian physics and modern holistic-quantum physics. Korten eloquently points to the necessity of abandoning the dominating power-oriented plutocracy of Empire in favor of a life-enhancing, continuously diversifying, cooperatively integrated Earth." - Prof. Dr.h.c.Hans-Peter Duerr PhD, former Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Physics, Munich; Winner, Alternative Nobel Prize 1987

"With the majesty of a George Lucas movie, Korten's epic tale, which pits Earth Community against Empire, weaves together the great social movements of our time. It inspires us at this crucial point in history to fulfill our destiny as thinking, acting and loving human beings." - Judy Wicks, Proprietress, White Dog Cafe and co-chair Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)

"The Great Turning is a work of amazing scope and depth. David Korten powerfully addresses the great challenge for humanity at this critical juncture in history: shifting from domination to partnership as the guiding principle for personal, economic, and political relations. Passionately, and with his customary attention to solid evidence, he traces the tension between these two underlying human possibilities. This is a wise and much needed book that shows we can create cultures where our enormous human capacities for joy, caring, and cooperation are realized." -Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade

"This is a hugely important book, and hugely impressive! I imagine it reaching far beyond Korten's existing readership." -Raffi Cavoukian, singer, author, ecology advocate, founder of Child Honoring

"In this major work, inspired by a compelling spiritual and ethical vision, The Great Turning argues persuasively that the 21st century presents humanity with a unique opportunity to break with its violent past and to create a just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful future. David Korten skillfully combines ecological, economic, social, psychological, and cultural analysis in order to issue a powerful summons to local communities and the emerging global civil society to lead the way. " -Steven C. Rockefeller, Co-chair, Earth Charter International Steering Committee

"An epic work. Exposes the myths that divide us and frames the stories that can bring us together." -Danny Glover, Activist and Actor

"David Korten has presented a clear blueprint for a powerful emerging majority. This book will help to change America for the better." -Dennis J. Kucinich, US House of Representatives (D-Ohio)

"David Korten's ideas are tools, like picks and shovels, that help us dig under the surface of our pessimism and fear of change. What we find is a deep core of hope for the Earth as Beloved Community and the ability to embrace the individual and collective kuleana (Hawaiian for responsibility) for our choices and their consequences." - Puanani Burgess, Hawaiian storyteller and poet

"The Great Turning is smooth, brilliantly researched, and gripping. David Korten has constructed a story of hope and insight. Alert the Democrats! Here is a blueprint for a vision they are born to promote to the world. Look for the section on Empire's War on the Family. The ending inspires poetically. Things aren't hopeless, the world is truly turning and all we need do is push ourselves along together." - Dal LaMagna, Founder and former CEO, Tweezerman

"David Korten is a militant for Life, Earth, and Community. This ground-breaking book provides the holistic overview of a 21st Century revolution and evolution that can inspire the ordinary citizen to act and transform the activist into a long-distance runner." - Grace Lee Boggs, Detroit activist, co-author of Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century

"Throw away the technological fixes of Thomas Friedman and Jeffrey Sachs and enter Korten's world where communities organize to secure their rights and build a better world. I know of no writer who better embraces the wisdom of such a broad spectrum of thinkers to create new understanding, new possibilities, new inspiration, new hope." - John Cavanagh, director, Institute for Policy Studies, board chair, International Forum on Globalization, and co-author of 12 books on the global economy

"This is indeed a spectacular book. The Great Turning supports our most open-hearted evolutionary process. I will buy several cases." - Bill Kauth, co-founder of the ManKind Project and author of A Circle of Men

"Brilliant. Challenging. Inspiring. Practical. Spiritual. Intelligent. Once again David Korten challenges us with his keen analysis, and elegant wisdom-a clear call for sustainable social transformation and a timely invitation to live a different story. Korten gives us exactly what we need to address our paralysis and fear. Read this book and be inspired to make a difference. I look forward to using The Great Turning in my education and public witness work. Korten's voice deserves to be heard far and wide." - The Very Reverend Bill Phipps, moderator United Church of Canada (1997 to 2000)

"Not only are we the ones we have been waiting for, THIS is the book we have been waiting for! It provides the context and stories that have been missing, leaving us with piecemeal analyses and solutions. The framework of the 5,000 year history of the Empire is a powerful eye-opener about the deliberateness of enslavement and oppression. Off and on, I heard in my head the words, the emperor has no clothes…" - Jan Roberts, Director, Earth Charter USA Communities Initiatives

Once you dive into this book, you'll want everyone you know to read it. It is a powerful source of inspiration and guidance for those already turning to Earth Community and it can help those embedded in Empire's institutions see more clearly the choices before them. - Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director, Co-op America

Customer Reviews

People are the new super power--local resilience, global community
I have mixed feelings about this book. It is unquestionably a five-star work of reflection, integration, and focused moral intent. On the other hand, while it introduced a broad "earth-friendly" literature that I was *not* familiar with, it does not "see" a much broader literature that I have absorbed, and so I want to do two things with this review: feature the highlights from this book, and list a number of other works that support and expand on the author's reflections for the greater good of us all.

Early highlights include the continued relevance of Dennis Kucinich and the emerging value of the Case Foundation and Revolution Health as funded by Steve Case, founder of AOL. The author posits early on the choice we have been a great unraveling and a great turning. He describes all our institutions as failing at the same time that we have unlimited potential. He concludes, as have many others, that centralized authority is not working, and suggests that we must confront that which does not work and devise new constructive alternatives ("for every no there must be a yes").

In the middle of the book he describes the five levels of consciousness as magical, imperial, socialized, cultural, and spirirtual. I would have put socialized ahead of imperial, since the industrial era used schools to socialize us into both factory workers and conscripts for the armed forces. He concludes this section with a commentary on moral autism, which of course reminds us of nakedly amoral Dick Cheney.

The author moves toward a conclusion by pointing out that people are the new super-power, with the Internet and its many new features as the foundation for bringing people together and making people power effective.

A large portion of the middle section is a historical review of America, with its genocidal, slavery, and unilateral militant interventionist nature, and its extreme inequality now, which the literature on revolution clearly identifies (the latter, concentration of wealth) as a precurser to almost inevitable violent revolution).

The book ends with four strategic elements:

1) Awakening of cultural and spiritual consciousness
2) Resistance of the imperial empire's assault on children, families, communities, and nature
3) Form and connect communities of convergence
4) Build a majoritarian political base.

In parting notes he points out that the status of our children is the key indicator of our future, and that today one out of every two children is born into and lives into poverty (one reason why the High Level Threat Panel put poverty above infectuous disease and environmental degradation).

He ends by calling for local living economies at a human scale.

If you have the time to only read one book within the broad literatures of imagination, corporateism, and constructive prospects for the planet, this is probably that book. Below I want to a list quite a few that support this author's thesis, and for which I have provided a summative as well as an evaluative review within these Amazon pages:

The Corporation
WALMART-HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE (DVD/FF/FR-SP-SUB)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

See also:
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'
"The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past"
Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Deep Economy

There are many more should you wish to explore via my categorized lists, but the above both lend great credence to the author of this single book, and expand considerably on the reflections that he has distilled into this one book.

The book is better than I had expected
...and my expectations were high to begin with. I must confess to only being half way through it. However, it's kept me up late both nights since purchasing it. (I'm writing this at 1:36 am after staying up way past my bed time to read "just one more" chapter.)

The author makes history come alive for the reader. Although I have read numerous books on history over the decades, this is the first one that explains the positive feedback loop that has allowed Empire to emerge and persist for 5000 years so far, despite the immeasurable cost to humanity and the planet.

The author recommends that readers form discussion groups and provides some tools for facilitating discussion. If you'd like to join mine, come to my site's forum.

This will be one of the most important books you will ever read.

The Global Mess We Are In and The Way Out Of It

David C. Korten has done a wonderful job of exposing the five thousand year history of Empire building and social hierarchy around the world and it`s tragic trail of greed and control driven tyranny, but with special attention to the history of it in the U.S. and up to it's current form- corporate control and manipulation of society decimating sustainable economics, the environment- and ultimately, the health of our nation and the world.

Korten relates that the U.S. Constitution was a remarkable accomplishment for it's time and along with evolving amendments to include all citizens of it's benefits, on paper at least, it appeared as a grand experiment in democracy.

As Korten succinctly points out, however, every advancement in democracy and fairness has been fought against by corporate giants and the rich for selfish monopoly of the assets of our nation leaving us with a huge disparity in wealth between the relatively small numbers of elite rich in proportion to the larger numbers of middle class on down to the very poor. That there is a class structure at all is a sad commentary on equality, fairness, and our democracy.

Korten proffers that the Great Turning will gain momentum when we embrace the notion that "...a proper market economy operates with rules, borders, and equitable local ownership under the public oversight of democratically accountable governments." (p 15)

The Great Turning embraces the tenants of the Earth Charter in recognizing that this world is finite, resources are limited and need to be used in a sustainable/regenerative way with equal distribution for a healthy and harmonious existence for all of the world's citizens.

"Creating a mature society, however, requires leadership by people of a mature consciousness." (p 48). And this is the essence of the message Korten is disseminating, I believe. His Great Turning and Yes!Magazine websites have an abundance of info and resources on taking action and organizing local groups for dialogue on the Great Turning.

The Great Turning is a remarkable achievement and a monument to sustainable human conduct and relation with all other life forms and the environment that supports us all.