From a renowned pioneer of the anti-globalization movement, a primer on working towards a localized world
From disappearing livelihoods to financial instability, from climate chaos to an epidemic of depression, we face crises on a number of seemingly unrelated fronts. This well-referenced book traces the common roots of these problems in a globalized economy that is incompatible with life on a finite planet. But Local is Our Future does more than just describe the problem: it describes the policy shifts and grassroots steps – many of them already underway around the world – that can move us towards the local and, thereby, towards a better world.
This is a six page summary review of a political-cultural-economic-social transformation that is both needed and possible, by the one person seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency who appears authentic, inclusive, and truthful. Links to free online supporting documentation for the author's radically humanistic and deeply spiritual proposals are included in the formal review. An additional five pages of links and one paragraph extracts are appended to give the reader easy access to a range of mass media depictions of the author that range from angelic to whacko.
This is a seven page summary review of one of the greatest books in modern political, economic, and cultural literature. The review concludes with links to other published literary commentary on the book being reviewed, and to superb videos where George Will is interviewed about his book, in this way augmenting the Kindle experience.
The Conservative Sensibility is a masterwork, a capstone work for the author, for his time, for the Republic, and for We the People who have lost our Republic.
7 Stars – Handbook for an American Renaissance – Life Transformative
Robert David Steele
This book is a masterwork, a capstone work for the author, for his time, for the Republic, and for We the People who have lost our Republic. Of the over 2,500 books I have reviewed, 10% of which have received a 6 star rating, this book is easily in the top 25 and perhaps the top 10. The last book I remember that impressed me this much was Philip Allot’s The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State (Cambridge, 2002) but this book is closer to home, focused on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the collapse of the US federal government with a Presidency run amok, a Congress in abdication, and a judiciary all too passive as the Constitution is shredded.
This glorious piece of work, clearly a handcrafted deeply researched endeavor (not a collection of past columns) that draws on all forms of erudition from poetry and theater and fiction to history, philosophy, and science, is noteworthy for integrating deep and diverse citations from the varied leading individuals in the US executive, US legislature, and US judiciary.
The top four points made by this book, in my view, are these:
This book is critical to the post-Western Web 3.0 new Internet and should be translated into Chinese and Russian as soon as possible.
This is a Nobel-level piece of work that provides everything that Vint Cerf and Tim Berner-Lee failed to plan for. It exposes the IT industry for the insecure naked posturing ponzi scheme that it is.
5 Stars Best Available Overview, Most “Experts” Still in Denial
Augmented Intelligence is the new meme that goes beyond Collective Intelligence. The editor has done the best possible job of collecting inputs from top people, a few of whom I know such as Jim Spohrer, and I recommend the book without reservation. Certainly it is my hope that the editor will be recognized as a rising star and given the freedom to do more outreach to include travel including China, toward what I hope will be a more multinational follow-on book.
5 Stars – Utterly brilliant insights and data, but publisher should have invested in graphics to match
Parag Khanna is for me the single best observer and reporter on the substance of Asia which he takes great pains to point out is not just China (a third of Asia’s population) but includes particularly vast swaths of Russia, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia including Indonesia and Australia, and Turkey.