An exceptional, encyclopedic, and hopeful vision of the future.
An accomplished scholar discusses societal transformation in this expansive study.
Visser’s pragmatic perspective on humanity’s challenges as expressed in this work is reason for optimism. An academic, poet, and author of 40 books, he brilliantly addresses the interrelationship of humans with nature, society, the economy, and organizations under the broad umbrella of regeneration. Drawing from his own research and others’, Visser identifies “six keys to thriving”—complexity, circularity, creativity, coherence, convergence, and continuity—deftly explaining each in the first chapter. “Six” is a recurrent theme; the author subsequently talks about the shift from “six forces of breakdown” to “six counterforces of breakthrough,” a concept that helps establish the foundation for a wide-ranging, erudite discussion of regeneration. A section on “Nature” delves into restoring ecosystems and developing a circular economy, the subjects of Visser’s Closing the Loop, a 2018 documentary. In the next two sections, the author writes elegantly about an inclusive, healthier economy along with the effects of technology and such crises as climate change on the world’s societies. Finally, Visser tackles how systems integration and forward-thinking leaders can play integral roles in regenerating businesses. The quality of the writing is superb throughout the work; the author clearly, thoroughly, and convincingly covers each topic. One distinctive feature of the book is the frequent use of sidebars highlighting a “Key Concept,” “Fresh Insight,” “Hot Trend,” “Case Spotlight,” “Breakthrough Solution,” or other intriguing tidbits of information. Such additions serve to enrich and illustrate the text with engaging, timely content. Another unusual aspect of the book is its poetry. To close each chapter, Visser appends a relevant poem he wrote. For example, “Giving Up” begins: “I’m giving up— / Not on life, but on those actions that threaten life / Not on living, but on those habits that distract from living / Not on loving, but on those fears that get in the way of loving.” These poems insert a warmly creative literary element into an otherwise scholarly text. Extensive notes and an exhaustive bibliography demonstrate the rigorous research conducted by the author.
An exceptional, encyclopedic, and hopeful vision of the future.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63908-007-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Fast Company Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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