A realistic utopia?

[Max]

Stealing the Future

A book imagining the problems (and suggesting some beginnings of solutions!) of getting from 'here' to somewhere much more equitable, much fairer and more just than we even dare dream is possible.

Stealing the Future is based in an East Germany that didn't get taken over by the West in 1990, but continued - as many of the people at the time wanted - down the path started in late 1989. A social experiment in grassroots democracy which at the time (and again in this book) raised all sorts of difficult questions about how we want to organise society.

Epub and mobi for the book are available for free from the publisher's site until at least the end of January 2016 - if it's no longer available for free at that location after January then I will post a new link on this thread. (let me know if I forget or don't notice!)

www.wolfpress.co.uk/frebook.php

My blog (with background reading): www.maxhertzberg.co.uk

Thoughts, feedback and criticisms most welcome, here or by pm or through my blog!

[Jason]

Sounds good thanks.

[M.]

On my reading list!

[Max]

It's been a couple of months, but the sequel to Stealing The Future came out last November.

It's called Thoughts Are Free. The fascists are on the streets of East Berlin and Martin and Karo are trying, in their own ways, to help stem the tide.

This was one of those books that are hard to write - remembering, researching and talking to others who witnessed the far-right in Germany in the 1990s, and who are resisting the same again now.

The third book in the series (out in Nov 2017) deals with the rise of a populist politician, and as I was writing it Trump was edging towards the White House. Now he's there, and that makes what I wrote feel even more immediate than it did when I was writing it.

So if you're feeling like you could do with a little bit of hope, then you might want to have a look at Thoughts Are Free.

Cheers,

Max Hertzberg

PS A Consensus Handbook, Co-operative decision-making for activists, co-ops and communities has become popular again since Trump ascended.