David C. Korten - Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth

More Praise for Change the Story, Change the Future

Change the Story, Change the Future will transform your view of reality and human purpose. One of the most important books of our time, from one of the most brilliant thinkers of our era, it hands us the keys to a world in which all people live in creative, peaceful, and coproductive partnership with one another and with nature. Read it, ponder its message, and spread the word!

Thom Hartmann, progressive internationally syndicated talk show host and bestselling author

David Korten truly is a visionary. In this book he answers the question, why is our world so destructive of people, place, and planet? Change the Story, Change the Future is a profound telling of how our current political economy is guided by a cultural story that is leading us in a deadly direction. Drawing on the latest science, the insights of indigenous wisdom, and his own remarkable life, Korten brings forth a new story that affirms our lives as participants in living communities.

James Gustave Speth, founder and former President, World Resources Institute; cofounder, Natural Resources Defense Council; and author of Angels by the River

This slender volume offers a radical rethinking of how we might frame a positive story to lead our species out of its current impasse. The result is a book that is genuinely optimistic but not naivea remarkable feat.

Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day; President, Bullitt Foundation; and author of Cowed

Joining the wisdom of the great spiritual teachers with findings from the leading edge of science, Change the Story, Change the Future outlines a transformative new narrative that is both promising and powerful. Read this book, reflect on the implications, and help bring a new story to the fore of public consciousness.

Van Jones, founder and President, Rebuild the Dream, and author of Rebuild the Dream

Change the Story, Change the Future is one of the most thought-provoking analyses of the shifts in Western ideals and modern society now available under one cover. It provides a new template for thinking about God, the world, and our own immersion in what we call the mind of God.

Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, Executive Director, Benetvision, and author of A Passion for Life

David outlines a fundamental truth in this powerful and groundbreaking new book: changing the way we view our role on the planet is the first and most crucial step toward a truly regenerative future. For those ready, this book will become a new source of clarityit will shatter all notions holding us back from true progress.

Jason F. McLennan, CEO, International Living Future Institute

David Kortens brilliance shines through in his understanding that to save Earth, ourselves, and democracy, we must change the story that governs how we understand the world and our choices. It is a truth both simple and profound. He delivers a compelling new story to guide our transition from a corporate-power to a people-power future.

John Cavanagh, Director, Institute for Policy Studies, and Cochair, New Economy Working Group

Once you read this book, youll never be able to look at todays tired old stories the same. Read it and then join the growing movement that is creating new storiesstories that guide us toward the better future we know is possible. Lets go!

Annie Leonard, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA, and author of The Story of Stuff

If ever there was a guide to a better future, this is it. David Kortens life journey has brought him (and now us through this book) to a profound understanding of the need for a life-enhancing story to guide us forward. Thank you, David!

Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians; 2005 Right Livelihood Award winner; and author of Blue Future

This small pebble of a book is an act of immense generosity. After a lifetime of reaching for the root causes of our malaise, David Korten has unearthed a simple truth: the story that enslaves us is not the real story. Read this to remember that our true nature is to be a good neighbor on a nurturing, competent planet.

Janine Benyus, partner and cofounder, Biomimicry Institute, and author of Biomimicry

David Korten tells a beautiful story about the power of story. We create the world according to the stories we tell ourselves; what power there is in this one realization. This gem of a book calls us to examine our core assumptions about how the world works so that we can cocreate a new, evidenced-based story that is alive with possibility.

Frances Moore Lapp, author of EcoMind

Human exploitation of Gods creation and the resulting consequences, such as climate change, are threatening all that God calls us to care about. In his accessible, insightful, and provocative new book, David Korten masterfully explains the pernicious worldview that got us to this point and suggests a new paradigm that we will need to adopt if we wish to preserve the Earth for future generations. Anyone who cares about the future of our planet and our human family should read this book.

Jim Wallis, President, Sojourners; Editor-in-Chief, Sojourners magazine; and New York Times bestselling author of The (Un)Common Good

Another waya truth aligned with what it actually is to be humanis emerging as an organizing principle for this era: interdependence. New science has shown that the essence of humanity is in fact to be connected to each other, to our purpose, and to the natural world. David Korten speaks the truth in this bookand it is the path to peace and deep joy.

Michelle Long, Executive Director, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

Change the Story, Change the Future is tremendous. David Korten has written Common Sense for our time. This book will put our feet on solid ground so we can move steadily and wisely into the future with the natural world as our partner.

Peter Buffett, Copresident, NoVo Foundation; musician/composer; and author of the New York Times bestseller Life Is What You Make It

David Korten has written a mythos beyond modernity that opens the mind to a new way of being in a world newly seen in which we are coparticipants in a knowing, acting (perhaps at the quantum variable level upward), participatory, coevolving living universe.

Stuart Kauffman, affiliate faculty, Institute for Systems Biology; Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry, University of Pennsylvania; and author of Reinventing the Sacred and At Home in the Universe

CHANGE THE STORY,
CHANGE THE
FUTURE

OTHER BOOKS BY DAVID C. KORTEN

Planned Change in a Traditional Society

Bureaucracy and the Poor

People-Centered Development

Community Management

Getting to the 21st Century

When Corporations Rule the World

Globalizing Civil Society

The Post-Corporate World

The Great Turning

Agenda for a New Economy

A LIVING ECONOMY FOR A LIVING EARTH

A Report to the Club of Rome

DAVID C. KORTEN

NEW ECONOMY WORKING GROUP