Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World

The book arrived in a very timely fashion and in very good condition. Thanks!

All that is good, all that is kind, all that brings about social progress: these are recounted in Paul Hawken's latest book. The stories of activists, alone, in groups, scattered over the world, are fascinating and well told. Who can argue with Hawken's view that "the world is a system, and it will soon be a very different world, driven by millions of communities who believe that democracy and restoration are grassroots movements that connect us to values we hold in common"? Hawken impressively lays out his case that "grace, justice and beauty" are advanced by humans who are, in the publc good, directly and indirectly attacking establishments. Especially impressive is his version of the Rachel Carson story, presented by the author as a morality tale--the intelligent, focused, painfully suffering, ultimately dying woman, a lone writer, a crusader, a quiet scientist who takes on the chemical industry to save wildlife and humans from pesticides. It's a moving story. My problem with the book is that the salient theme running through these stories is that economic enterprise (especially industrial enterprise) is the bane of human existence.
At one point in this slim volume (half the book is an Appendix of terms and scattered thoughts), Hawken provides two lists. The "list of companies and agencies that legally or illegally impose their will on indigenous cultures" runs for four pages. A listing of "organizations promoting environmental and social justice" covers another couple of pages. Climate change, poverty, disease, and environmental degradation are cited as threats ignored by enterprise and "the secret intelligence community." Bad versus good. Cold cases rewarmed by Hawken, whose earlier works (Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution--done with the Lovins--or The Ecology of Commerce) were less morally pedantic, fresh and so much better than this book.

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

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.

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.