Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming

book data

217 ratings, 3.93 average rating, 69 reviews (more data...)

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published

May 10th 2007 by Viking Adult

binding

Hardcover, 352 pages

isbn

0670038520 (isbn13: 9780670038527)

description

One of the world's most influential environmentalists reveals a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity

Blessed Unrest ...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 621)

All ratings | 5 stars (69) | 4 stars (87) | 3 stars (43) | 2 stars (13) | 1 star (5) | avg 3.93

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Dan

Dan rated it:

08/17/08

bookshelves: ecology, philosophy

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

Paul Hawken sees a forest where many people only see trees. His 'trees' are groups working for the wellbeing of Earth and all the life forms that live on it. The forest is something he calls a movement, a mostly unconnected constellation of groups that share a common concern for the quality of life on our planet.

Before I say anything more, I want to compliment him for using the word 'unrest' correctly in the title. Journalists use the same word to describe murder in the streets, as in "...more

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jeremy

jeremy rated it:

01/29/08

Read in January, 2008

as a friend pointed out, the blurbs alone deem this a must-read (jane goodall, bill mckibben, barry lopez, terry tempest williams, david james duncan, & david suzuki). at the beginning of blessed unrest, hawken succinctly remarks, "in total, the book is inadvertently optimistic, an odd thing in these bleak times." indeed. refreshingly propitious, hawken counters prevailing disillusionment and listlessness with numerous examples of innumerable organizations acting to effec...more

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Allison

Allison rated it:

05/14/08

Read in May, 2008

I forced my way through this book because its written by Paul Hawken, one of the authors of Natural Capitalism (one of my very favorites). But man, it was hard to get through. Overly emotional and too historical. The bits about the civil rights movement were interesting though. Anway, I was about half way through when I realized I couldn't sludge on any further. So I peeked ahead to see if there was anything else I wanted to read- and realized that I wasn't half way through, but nearly done! The...more

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Susan

Susan rated it:

07/02/07

At last! A hopeful book! Seeing the emergence of grass-roots organizations committed to social and environmental justice, and knitting together these observations with commentary of the trends, the author has a compellingly positive message - we ARE pulling together to save the world. Now, we "just" have to make it happen and it truly WILL be a hopeful time again.

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Kathy

Kathy rated it:

07/12/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

This is the book for all the people in the trenches of justice work, feeling discouraged about changing the world, feeling alone, powerless. It provides a picture of hope and optimism to keep on moving mountains, one shovelful at a time. It is full of web links to assist in connecting the global network of change agents.

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Edbato

Edbato rated it:

11/09/08

Read in November, 2008

I am looking for something, but not really hard, because I do not expect to find it. The truest questions are unanswered. But still I wonder. And then this book comes along, and touches upon one of them.

Back in the day, it was all about the one, grand, unifying cause, for which we the inspired enlisted, envisioned a line of march, and endeavored to advance lockstep with each other in the twists and turns toward the common goal, with all rivulets connected into a common stream. We called it r...more I am looking for something, but not really hard, because I do not expect to find it. The truest questions are unanswered. But still I wonder. And then this book comes along, and touches upon one of them.

Back in the day, it was all about the one, grand, unifying cause, for which we the inspired enlisted, envisioned a line of march, and endeavored to advance lockstep with each other in the twists and turns toward the common goal, with all rivulets connected into a common stream. We called it revolution, and that was our one and only mission. ...This great project of our lives is now a thing of the past, and perhaps the confidence of the vanguard has been lost forever.

Enter Blessed Unrest, and perhaps there is hope. A new movement has arisen, with many seemingly unconnected rivulets, and what is crucial here, is that there seems to be no vital need for a conscious element to tie it all together. This is called the confidence of evolution.

"Across the planet, groups ranging from neighborhood associations to well-funded international organizations are confronting issues like the destruction of the environment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. Though these groups share no unifying ideology or charismatic leader...they are bringing about a profound transformation of human society." In fact, any attempt to subsume local or smaller initiatives into a grander, larger scheme may be held suspect if motivated by totalitarianizing tendencies - though the book does recognize the importance of interconnectedness of issues and joint initiatives and actions. The strength of the movement, however, is it's spontaneous, and undirected diversity, which has allowed it to flower.

What then is the role of the conscious element? Well, it all becomes a solely personal affair from now on. We individually choose how we live and commit our lives towards the betterment of the world. The rest we leave to others as they choose, and to our faith in them and in the blessed future of the world....less

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Solidarity

Solidarity rated it:

(review of isbn 0143113658)

01/24/08

Read in June, 2007

recommended to Solidarity by: Google
recommends it for: Green activists, community organizers

You suggest that the politics of the future are really about fostering unusual alliances that revolve around ideas. Strange bedfellows—evangelicals aligning with environmentalists, for example. Are you seeing this elsewhere?

Yes. At the same time, we find out that we’re not strange bedfellows. We’re human beings and what estranged us is far less important and almost meaningless compared to what is meaningful now. You’re seeing Wal-Mart, for example, quite authentically—and I don�...more

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Robert

Robert rated it:

12/10/07

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: people into the World Social Forum process

Paul Hawken’s new book, entitled Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, makes a simple argument in a straightforward fashion. This makes the book infinitely more readable than another book that makes a similar argument in incomprehensible poetic prose, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt . The only problem with the clarity of Hawken’s argument is that it brings into full relief its d...more Paul Hawken’s new book, entitled Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, makes a simple argument in a straightforward fashion. This makes the book infinitely more readable than another book that makes a similar argument in incomprehensible poetic prose, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt . The only problem with the clarity of Hawken’s argument is that it brings into full relief its deficiencies.

The book begins by chronicling the rapid rise of the NGO, both in sheer numbers and in political power. Somehow, this multitude of NGOs is part of “The Movement”, heading toward a consistent vision of a better world. Hawken makes an analogy to an immune system, where thousands of different cells each do one tiny thing and together the whole system creates a collective property called “immunity.” Another analogy (which Hawken doesn’t make) would be the similarity to free market economies, where thousands of firms each independently just try to make money but overall the system achieves “efficiency”. The clear message of the book is that even if only a small percentage of NGOs achieve their goals, they will help further “The Movement”.

In a sense, this kind of argument is motivated by the desire of progressives to believe we can win in the absence of a single unifying ideology. The principle problem with the argument is the fuzzy concept of a “Movement”. The diversity of NGOs is staggering, and I don’t see any real coherent goal that they all share. In fact, many more conservative NGOs (which presumably express at least somewhat real desires by real people) are working at cross-purposes with more liberal NGOs.

It’s much better to think of this explosion of NGOs as simply the birth of a global civil society. Just as we don’t expect consensus in a republic among all the elected representative, since their constituents are too diverse, neither should we expect consensus among NGOs. There’s a word for this explosion of NGOs, and it’s not “Movement”, it’s “Democracy”.
...less

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Neel

Neel rated it:

06/04/08

The book's thesis is simple - that collectively, a laundry list of "progressive" causes, including indigenous rights, environmentalism, anti-globalization, local food, etc. can collectively be considered the largest social movement in the history of mankind. Hawken must make the argument that all these disparate movements are really pointed at one overall goal. He often repeats himself, saying that it is impossible to categorize EVERY non-profit, NGO, neighborhood action group, etc.,...more

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Wheelo

Wheelo rated it:

09/18/08

Read in September, 2008

Not having read any of Hawken's other books, I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but this one fell a bit short of my expectations.

It's a very short book -- 190 pages of text plus an addition 130 or so of contextual material, references and index -- and the first third or more was a short history of the environmental movement, 95% of which I was already familiar with.

When you get to the meat of the book, it was more interesting -- both in the look at just how many NGOs are working...more

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Anjuli

Anjuli rated it:

11/20/08

Read the first chapter more than once. The rest of the book is interesting, but the initial excitement that comes from his discussion of this illusive "movement" wears off throughout the book as he digresses and argues with himself about whether or not it will work. Ends in a depressing way, sans conclusion. Enlightening none-the-less.

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Cherie

Cherie rated it:

09/18/07

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: activists, environmentalists, curious people

A+++ This is one of the most phenomenal nonfiction books I've read in a while. I can't even begin to tell you how many things I have learned, or how many times I had to pause to drop my mouth open and think, "I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HOW IT IS!" There's a lot of fascinating stuff in here about the destruction of the environment by large corporations (Booooo!), about how the World Bank and IMF are puppets of the large rich nations, and how if we actually cared (read: the US government a...more

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Laurel

Laurel rated it:

07/26/07

bookshelves: nonfiction-globalstudies, nonfiction-political

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: new activists, burnt-out activists, lovers of interdisciplinary nonfiction

I came to the book feeling cynical about it. I felt it would skim too much over major issues, since it is so wide-ranging. I have been pleasantly surprised by how the author collects history and information from disparate fields (biology, political theory, anthropology, history) and uses the information to put together an engaging and satisfying account of the social justice and environmental movements. His stance that we have reason to hope makes this good reading for burnt-out activists, who w...more

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Stephanie

Stephanie rated it:

11/29/07

Read in November, 2007

This book was a ray of light in our gloom and doom media culture. This was, in fact, his purpose -- to write about what is going right in the world, especially in the important work being done by non-profits and NGOs all over the world, in opposition of a planet-killing globalized corporation culture. The main thesis is that the combined total of the work that all these groups and of citizen action that has been taking place -- that this adds up to a huge movement that will be world-changing. ...more

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Cindy

Cindy rated it:

12/30/07

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in July, 2007

The idea of this book was interesting - comparing the network/existence of many small activist groups to the immune system of the biosphere - the execution was difficult to read, with enough fact checking problems and unsupported statements to make me uncomfortable about his depiction of the history and global span of interconnected movements (social justice, environmental, cultural preservation, etc...) The second part of the book analyzes the database that the author is involved with: wiserea...more

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Cindywho

Cindywho rated it:

07/10/07

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in July, 2007

The idea of this book was interesting - comparing the network/existence of many small activist groups to the immune system of the biosphere - the execution was difficult to read, with enough fact checking problems and unsupported statements to make me uncomfortable about his depiction of the history and global span of interconnected movements (social justice, environmental, cultural preservation, etc...) The second part of the book analyzes the database that the author is involved with: wiserea...more

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Daniel

Daniel rated it:

10/09/08

I wanted to like this book more than I could. I think Hawken makes an interesting analogy about the worldwide surge in social movements being akin to an immune system of a body under attack, but I think the historical set up wasn't as thorough as it needed to be to really cement the argument and make it a very usable resource. But it's a useful book for those interested in what do we (and others) mean when we talk about sustainability. And the tone is hopeful! which can be nice for those of u...more

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Thomas

Thomas rated it:

08/05/08

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in August, 2008

READ THIS BOOK! Hawken has writen many books about our beleaguered biosphere -- the primary aim of this one is to call attention to the history and dizzying variety of people and organizations that have sprung up in nonviolent resistence to corporate globalization, totalitarian power structures, and cancerous growth.

The book amounts to a primer in ecology, immunology, and love -- three extraordinarily complex yet mysteriously simple aspects of our nature. Which, incidentally, is Nature.

...more

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Erik

Erik rated it:

01/26/08

Read in January, 2007

The book does an excellent job of coalescing otherwise amorphous thinking about the role of citizen and community activists as an essential component of our society. In so doing, it offers a vision for how we can make government more effective and responsive to the needs of the people, in part by rethinking the relationship of governments to their people (or, perhaps more accurately, actually reflecting the relationship), and hope to the people dedicating their lives to making this happen.

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Rich

Rich is currently reading it

06/19/07

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: Anyone interested in environmental preservation or social justice.

I'm only in about two or three chapters. An interesting book, I agree with many points, the environment, social justice, and "globalization" are all facets of the major challenge of our generation. I do disagree with some of the observations about politics and political systems. While capitalism and market economies are not perfect, I think Churchill's observation about democracy applies here, it's the worst option, except for all the others. Let's see what the rest of the book has to

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