This was my starting place for polycrisis reading, and I was pleasantly surprised by how optimistic and engaging it was. I got the audio version and walked many miles listening to this uplifting book. If you want to wrap your head around these troubling times with minimal doom & gloom, start here.

Susan

By Thomas Homer Dixon

Commanding Hope marshals a fascinating, accessible argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, strengthen our economies and cultures, and renew our hope for a positive future for everyone on Earth.

Frightening pandemics, terrible inequality, racism and poverty, rising political authoritarianism, the inescapable climate crisis, and the resuscitated danger of nuclear war.

We know the story. Some choose not to see it. Each of these crises seems so much larger than any one of us can understand or handle. Yet today, they all seem to be going critical simultaneously. In Commanding Hope, I show why and how we got here; and most importantly, I show the powers we possess to renew our imperiled world. This is a hopeful book.

More Books

Reality Blind

Reality Blind

By Nate Hagens A story about Earth’s most successful modern creature – the human being. But Earth’s most successful modern creature is now in a predicament; a predicament brought about by a compelling combination of vital human traits and our (relatively) recent...

Noam Chomsky and Andrea Moro on the limits of our comprehension

Noam Chomsky and Andrea Moro on the limits of our comprehension

“I propose to consider the question, ‘Can machines think?’ This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms ‘machine’ and ‘think.’ The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is...

Navigating the Polycrisis

Navigating the Polycrisis

Mapping the Futures of Capitalism and the Earth The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and...

Permacrisis

Permacrisis

A Plan to Fix a Fractured World Three of the most internationally respected and experienced thinkers of our time, these friends found their pandemic Zooms increasingly focused on a cascade of crises: sputtering growth, surging inflation, poor policy responses, an...

Spaces for Growth: Learning our Way out of a Crisis

Spaces for Growth: Learning our Way out of a Crisis

By Graham Leicester and Maureen O'Hara In normal times we tend to go about our lives oblivious to the structures, institutions, processes and shared values that shape our behaviours. In powerful times like ours, deep structures of love, power and justice are brought...

Deep Survival: Who lives, who dies, and why

Deep Survival: Who lives, who dies, and why

By Laurence Gonzales Laurence Gonzales’s bestselling Deep Survival has helped save lives from the deepest wildernesses, just as it has improved readers’ everyday lives. Its mix of adventure narrative, survival science, and practical advice has inspired everyone from...