Table of Contents

Getting off the Economic Growth Treadmill: The Resilience Imperative; Back to the Future: Seers from our Past -- Guides for the 21st Century?; Seeking Strategic Pathways from the Grip of Compound Interest: Sweden's JAK Bank -- Financing Transition; Seeking Strategic Pathways to Affordable Housing: The Case for Land Reform; Seeking Strategic Pathways to Energy Sufficiency; Seeking Strategic Pathways to Sustainable Food Systems; Organizing for Transition: Reweaving Local Economies; Capital SEE Change Required! : Transforming the Ecology of Finance; Securing the SEE Change : Federating for Influence & Power; Finance, Democracy & Ownership: Challenges of Transition; Wiring & Weaving Scaled Up Approaches to Transition.

Promotional Information

Co-op available
National advertising: Municipal World, Planning, Mother Jones, Communities Magazine
National print campaign: Yes! Magazine, Utne, Mother Jones, Orion, Ode
Online/social media campaign: Email promotion to members of Canadian Centre for Community Renewal, Social Economy Research Alliance, Transition US. Institute for Local Self Reliance
Promotions on Canadian for Centre for Community Renewal Facebook (+1000 likes), Twitter @communityrenewa
Social Media Outreach: Promoted on New Society Publishers Facebook page with book announcement and contest, featured on New Society Book Club Forum, promotion on @NewSocietyPub Twitter, # sustainability, #transitiontowns
Academic promotion to colleges and universities sustainable development/environment studies/planning faculty
Excerpts in: Making Waves, Canadian Community Economic Development Quarterly, Yes! Magazine, Mother Jones, Municipaly World, Planning
Promotion through the author’s website: www.communityrenewal.ca

About the Author

Michael Lewis is Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal He is well-known internationally as a practitioner, author, educator, and leader in the field of Community Economic Development. Michael has worked with a wide range of businesses, organizations, communities and governments on initiatives related to transition, community resource management, development finance and the social economy. Until recently he also led the B.C. -- Alberta Social Economy Research Alliance, a university/ practitioner platform for applied research. Patrick Conaty is a Californian working in England and Wales. He is a Fellow of new economics foundation and a research associate of Community Finance Solutions at the University of Salford. Pat specializes in developmental research on cooperative and mutual enterprise and is a national expert in the fields of community development finance and community land trusts.

Reviews

Review, Resurgence Magazine, Ed Mayo The two authors have an outstanding track record of social innovation for a more just and sustainable economy. What they describe is therefore born out of practice rather than ideas. The Resilience Imperative tells us that it is OK to dream in the daytime. The authors are practical pioneers with an unrivalled track record of cooperative innovation. Review, E Magazine July 2012 K.B. How can we get our economy back on track while simultaneously making it more socially, environmentally and financially sustainable? The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy addresses this question through a series of warnings and historical examples. Authors Michael Lewis and Pat Conaty, who specialize in integrative economic systems, advocate for the U.S. moving away from a large economy reliant on fossil fuels to small, local economies. Lewis and Conaty warn readers about the current "era of volatility" caused by human impact on the environment and climate change and walk them through the links between fossil fuel consumption, climate change, the global economy and financial recessions. "In part, what impedes our breaking out of the box is the conviction that economic growth and prosperity are synonymous--too many believe that we can't have one without the other," they write. They stress that prosperity is determined by quality of life and that the economy should be stabilized, not continue to grow. The authors offer as examples Sweden's JAK, an interest-free lending system, and Community Land Trusts such as the Gramdan movement in India. The cooperation between individuals and policymakers is vital to create a country that can sustain itself and its practices, they posit. "Without engagement, dialogue, and sometime fractious debate to determine what is most important, it is not possible to set strategy effectively or to learn from what works and what does not." They argue that with more integration and cooperation between businesses, governments and communities, a more sustainable economy is possible.