Local Futures

  • Home
  • Media Room
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Contact

The Economics of Happiness

Donate
Menu
  • About
    • About Local Futures
    • Who we are
    • Founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge
    • Our history
    • Get involved & support us
    • Close
  • Our projects
    • Global to Local
      • International Alliance for Localization (IAL)
        • Join the IAL
        • IAL members
          • IAL member organizations
          • IAL Listserv
        • Video Project: Voices from the IAL
      • Planet Local
        • Culture
        • Eco Communities
        • Ecology
        • Health
        • Local Business & Finance
        • Local Energy
        • Local Food, Farming & Fisheries
        • Local Policy & Community Rights
        • Place-based Education
        • Sharing & Repairing
      • Local Bites podcast
        • Beyond Conspiracy: Framing Meaningful Activism
        • Unpacking Global Empire from an Indigenous Perspective
        • More than Just the Vegetables
        • Food Sovereignty in the Global Economy
        • Transition, Tradition, and Trade
        • Not-for-Profit Businesses
        • Love, Values, and Wellbeing Economies
        • Growing a Farmers Market from the Ground Up
        • Beautiful Places: A Conversation with Wendell Berry
        • Creating the Framework for a New Economy
        • From GDP to GNH
        • Rebuilding Healthy Communities: The Growing Ecovillage Movement
        • Seeds of Resilience, Seeds of Sovereignty
        • Why Local Ownership Matters
        • Local Alternatives to Globalized Development: A View from India
        • How to Feed the World? A Political Agroecological Approach
        • Helena Norberg-Hodge on how corporate ‘free trade’ deals threaten local communities and economies worldwide
    • Our work in Ladakh
      • Past work in Ladakh
        • Experiences in Ladakh 2018
        • Experiences in Ladakh 2017
      • Ancient Futures (book & film)
      • Local Futures’ history in Ladakh
        • Women’s Alliance of Ladakh
    • Economics of Happiness
      • Economics of Happiness conferences
      • The film
      • DIY Economics of Happiness workshop
    • Close
  • Events
    • Upcoming events
      • Full events calendar
    • Economics of Happiness conferences
      • Past international conferences
      • Other past events
    • Calendar
        • « April 2021 » loading...
          M T W T F S S
          29
          30
          31
          1
          2
          3
          4
          5
          6
          7
          8
          9
          10
          11
          12
          13
          14
          15
          16
          17
          18
          19
          20
          21
          22
          23
          24
          25
          26
          27
          28
          29
          30
          1
          2
    • Close
  • Learn & take action
    • Learn about our work
      • Learn about Globalization
      • Learn about Localization
      • Learn about Big Picture Activism
    • Activist tools
      • COVID-19 response: let’s localize like never before
      • What you can do to localize now
      • Films for change
      • Recommended readings
      • Organizations for change
      • Independent media sources
      • Maps of alternatives
    • Close
  • Books, films & videos
    • Our books and reports
      • Local is Our Future by Helena Norberg-Hodge
        • Endorsements for Local is Our Future
        • Translations of Local is Our Future
      • Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge
      • Free reading materials
      • Newsletters & annual reports
      • Translated resources
    • Our films and videos
      • The Economics of Happiness film
      • Ancient Futures film
      • Insane Trade short film and factsheet
        • Insane Trade! & factsheet translated
      • Animation: Going Local: the solution-multiplier
      • Planet Local short film series
        • 1 – Introduction: The new local food movement
        • 2 – Diverse farming systems
        • 3 – Local food webs: Exploring systems of distribution
        • 4 – Local food processors: AKA making delicious food
        • 5 – Challenges & solutions
        • 6 – Ecovillages & networks for new farmers
        • 7 – and finally… Here’s a little more inspiration
      • Webinar recordings
        • Sacred Activism in a Post-Trump World Webinar
        • Talking Climate Webinar
        • People Power: Democracy and the Economy Webinar
        • Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change Webinar
        • Bringing the Food Economy Home Webinar
        • A World Without ‘Free’ Trade: What it would look like and how to get there
        • Beyond ‘Free Trade’ – Alternatives to Corporate Rule
        • Education: Promises, Myths & Realities Webinar
        • Debt and Speculation in the Global Economy Webinar
        • A New Activism Webinar
        • Climate Change or System Change Webinar
        • Going Local Webinar
    • Close
You are here: Home / Activist Tools / Recommended Readings

Recommended Readings

Below are some of the key books – both older classics and newer work – that have informed Local Futures’ perspectives on our central issues: hard-hitting critiques and analyses of globalization, corporate power and agribusiness, and thought-provoking explorations of localization alternatives; cultural diversity versus monoculture; and more.

We hope you will find them equally rewarding reads, and invite your suggestions for additions at: [email protected].

Recent Additions

    A Small Farm Future
    Author: Smaje, Chris
    Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020
    Read more here.

    Break ‘Em Up:
    Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag,
    Big Tech, and Big Money

    Author: Teachout, Zephyr
    Publisher: Macmillan Publishers, 2020

    We Feed the World:
    A Celebration of Smallholder Farmers and Fishing Communities

    Author: The Gaia Foundation, Foreword by Shiva, Vandana
    Publisher: The Gaia Foundation, 2020

    Formerly Known as Food
    Author: Lawless, Kristin
    Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 2018

    Recommended Readings List

    Localization: Alternatives to the Globalized Economy

    Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible
    Author: International Forum on Globalization
    Publisher: San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc, 2002


    The Bioregional Economy: Land, Life and the Pursuit of Happiness
    Author: Scott-Cato, Molly
    Publisher: Routledge, 2013


    Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up
    Author: Flaccavento, Anthony – Foreword by Bill McKibben
    Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky, 2016


    Green Alternatives to Globalization
    Authors: Woodin, Michael and Lucas, Caroline
    Publisher: Pluto Press, 2004


    Happier People, Healthier Planet
    Authors: Belton, Teresa
    Publisher: Silverwood Books, 2014


    Home Economics
    Author: Berry, Wendell
    Publisher: North Point Press, 1987


    Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age
    Author: Shuman, Michael
    Publisher: New York: Routledge, 2000

    Local is Our Future
    Author: Norberg-Hodge, Helena
    Publisher: Local Futures, 2019


    Localism in the Mass Age
    Authors: Mitchell, Mark T. and Peters, Jason
    Publisher: Front Porch Republic Books, 2018


    The Localization Reader: Adapting to the Coming Downshift
    Authors: Young De, Raymond and Princen, Thomas
    2019


    Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
    Author: Schumacher, E.F.
    Publisher: New York: Harper and Row, and London: Blond and Briggs Ltd, 1973


    Selling Local: Why Local Food Movements Matter
    Authors: Robinson, Jennifer, M. and Farmer, James.R.
    2017


    Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economics for Security in an Unstable World
    Author: Douthwaite, Richard.J.
    1998


    The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (2nd edition)
    Author: Shuman, Michael
    Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007

    The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy
    Authors: Bennholdt-Thomsen Veronica & Mies Maria
    Publisher: Zed Books, 1999


    Sufficiency Economy: Enough, for Everyone, Forever
    Author: Alexander, Samuel
    Publisher: Simplicity Institute Publishing, 2015


    Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming our Communities
    Authors: Gibson-Graham, J.K. Cameron, Jenny. Healy, Stephen
    Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 2013


    Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (1st edition)
    Author: Hopkins, Rob
    Publisher: Green Books, 2008


    True Wealth
    Author: Schor, Juliet
    Publisher: Penguin, 2011


    The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays
    Author: Berry, Wendell
    Publisher: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005


    What matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth (first edition)
    Author: Berry, Wendell
    Publisher: Counterpoint, 2011

    Critiques of Globalization

    Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money
    Author: Teachout, Zephyr
    Publisher: Macmillan Publishers, 2020


    Capitalist Globalization: Consequences, Resistance and Alternatives
    Author: Hart-Landsberg, Martin
    Publisher: Monthly Review Press, 2013


    The Case Against the Global Economy: and For a Turn Toward the Local
    Author: Mander, Jerry, and Edward Goldsmith (eds.)
    Publisher: San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996


    The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets
    Author: Hickel, Jason
    Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2018

    Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision and Human Scale
    Author: Sale, Kirkpatrick
    Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2000


    Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (1st edition)
    Author: Shiva, Vandana
    Publisher: South End Press, 2005


    Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century
    Author: Petras, James and Veltmeyer, Herman
    Publisher: Zed Books, 2001


    Farewell to Growth
    Author: Latouche, Serge
    Publisher: Polity Press, 2009


    Free Trade: Myth, Reality and Alternatives
    Authors: Dunkley, Graham
    Publisher: Zed Books, 2004

    The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization
    Authors: Ellwood, Wayne
    Publisher: New Internationalist Publications, 2011


    They Rule: the 1% vs. Democracy
    Author: Street, Paul
    Publisher: Paradigm Publishers, 2014


    There is an Alternative
    Author: Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika, Faraclas, Nicholas and Von Werlhof, Claudia
    Publisher: Spinifex Press, 2001


    In the Wake of the Affluent Society
    Author: Latouche, Serge
    Publisher: Zed Books, 1993


    When Corporations Rule the World
    Author: Korten, David
    Publisher: West Hartford, Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 1995

    Rethinking Development, Progress and Economics

    The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
    (main edition)
    Author: Zuboff, Shoshana
    Publisher: Profile Books, 2019


    Beyond Developmentality: Constructing Inclusive Freedom and Sustainability
    Author: Deb, Debal
    Publisher: Routledge, 2009


    The Breakdown of Nations and the Overdeveloped Nations (new edition)
    Author: Kohr, Leopold
    Publisher: Green Books, 2001


    Carbon Metrics, Global abstractions and ecological epistemicide
    Authors: Moreno, Camila and Speich Chassé, Daniel and Fuhr, Lili.
    Volume 42 of the Publication Series Ecology. Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
    2015


    Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India
    Authors: Kothari, Ashish and Srivastava, Aseem
    Publisher: Viking India, 2012


    Climate: A New Story
    Author: Eisenstein, Charles
    Publisher: North Atlantic Books, 2018


    Consuming Cultures: Globalization and Local Lives
    Author: Seabrook, Jeremy
    Publisher: New Internationalist Publications Ltd, 2004


    Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture
    Author: Pascoe, Bruce
    Publisher: Magabala Books, 2018


    Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era
    Author: D’Alisa, Giacomo, Demaria, Federica and Kallis, Giorgos
    Publisher: Routledge, 2014


    The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power
    Author: Sachs, Wolfgang (ed.)
    Publisher: London and New Jersey. Zed Books, 1992


    Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World
    Author: Escobar, Arturo
    Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2011


    The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
    Author: Heinberg, Richard
    Publisher: Clairview Books, 2011

    Exploring Degrowth:
    A Critical Guide

    Author: Liegey, Vincent. Nelson, Anitra
    Publisher: Pluto Press, 2020


    The Good Life Beyond Growth
    Author: Hartmut Rosa (ed.)
    Publisher: Routledge, 2019


    The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
    Author: Polanyi, Karl
    Publisher: Beacon Press, 2002


    Happier People Healthier Planet: how putting wellbeing first would help sustain life on earth
    Author: Belton, Teresa
    Publisher: Silver Wood Books Ltd, 2014


    The Inner Level: Howe More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Wellbeing
    Author: Pickett, Kate and Wilkinson, Richard
    Publisher: Allan Lane, 2018


    Less Is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness
    Author: Andrews, Cecile and Urbanska, Wanda
    Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2009


    Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
    Author: Hickel, Jason
    Publisher: Penguin, 2020


    Local Dollars,  Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity
    Author: Shuman, Michael H.
    Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012


    Myth of the Machine
    Vol 1 & 2

    Author: Mumford, Lewis
    Publisher: Mariner Books, 1971


    The New Peasantries: Rural Development in Times of Globalization
    Author: Van der Ploeg, Jan Douwe
    Publisher: Routledge, 2018


    Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Development
    Author: Sachs, Wolfgang, 2015


    Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
    Author: Kothari, Ashish et al
    Publisher: AuthorsUpFront, 2019


    The Post-Development Reader
    Author: Rahnema, Majid (ed.)
    Publisher: London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1997

    Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (reprint edition)
    Author: Jackson, Tim
    Publisher: Routledge, 2011


    Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia
    Author: Stoll, Steven
    Publisher: Hill & Wang, 2017


    Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It
    Author: McLaren, Deborah
    Publisher: West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1998


    Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition
    Author: Eisenstein, Charles
    Publisher: Evolver Editions, 2011


    Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World
    Author: Yunkaporta, Tyson
    Publisher: Harper One, 2020


    Seeing Like a State
    Author: Scott. James, C.
    Publisher: Yale University Press, 1999


    Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure, and Joie de Vivre
    Author: Andrews, Cecile
    Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2006


    Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We have so Little Left
    Author: Taylor, Mark C.
    Publisher: Yale University Press, 2014


    Stone Age Economics
    Author: Sahlins, Marshall
    Publisher: Aldine Transaction, 1974


    Tools for Conviviality, and Deschooling Society
    Author: Illich, Ivan
    Publisher: Marion Boyars, 2001


    The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology (new edition)
    Author: Winner, Langdon
    Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1988


    Victims of Progress (5th edition)
    Author: Bodley, John H.
    Publisher: AltaMira Press, 2008


    Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
    Author: Galeano, Eduardo
    Publisher: St. Martins’s Press, 2001

    Local Food vs. Global Agribusiness

    Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance and Renewal
    Author: Magdoff, Fred and Tokar, Brian
    Publisher: Monthly Review Press, 2010


    Agroecology: Science and Policy
    Author: Rosset, Peter and Altieri Miguel
    Publisher: Fernwood Publishing, 2017


    Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness
    Authors: Norberg-Hodge, Helena. Merrified, Todd. Gorelick, Steven
    Publisher: Zed Books (UK) and Kumarian Press (USA), 2002


    Climate: A New Story
    Author: Eisenstein, Charles
    Publisher: North Atlantic Books, 2018


    Eating Tomorrow:
    Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food

    Author: Wise, A. Wise
    Publisher: Small Planet Institute, 2019


    The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community and the Land
    Author: Wirzba, Norman
    Publisher: Counterpoint Press, 2004

    The Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture
    Author: Kimbrell, Andrew (ed)
    Publisher: Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2002


    Farming While Black
    Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land

    Author: Penniman, Leah
    Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018


    Food
    Author: Clapp, Jennifer
    2020


    Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community
    Authors: Desmarais, Annette. Wittman, Hannah, Kay. Wiebe, Nettie
    Publisher: Food First Books, 2010


    Food Town USA
    Author: Winne, Mark. 2019.
    Publisher: Island Press, 2019
    Read more here


    Food Sovereignty, Agroecology and Biocultural Diversity
    Author: Pimbert, P. Michel
    Publisher: Routledge, 2017


    Formerly Known as Food
    Author: Lawless, Kristen
    Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 2018


    From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture
    Author: Norberg-Hodge, Helena. Goering, Peter. Page, John
    Publisher: Local Futures/International Society for Ecology and Culture & Zed Books, 2000

    The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming
    Author: Weis, Tony
    Publisher: Zed Books, 2007


    Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America
    Author: Gayeton, Douglas
    Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, 2014


    The New Agrarianism: Land, Culture and the Community of Life
    Authors: Freyfogle, Eric
    Publisher: Island Press, 2001


    A Small Farm Future
    Authors: Smaje, Chris
    Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020


    Selling Local: Why Local Food Movements Matter
    Author: Robinson, Jennifer, Meta and Farmer, James, Robert
    Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2017


    Tending the Earth: Traditional, Sustainable Agriculture in India
    Author: Pereira, Winin
    Publisher: Bombay. Earthcare Books, 1993


    The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
    Author: Berry, Wendell
    Publisher: San Francisco. Sierra Club Books, 1977


    We Feed the World:
    A Celebration of Smallholder Farmers and Fishing Communities

    Author: The Gaia Foundation, Foreword by Shiva, Vandana
    Publisher: The Gaia Foundation, 2020

    Challenging Consumerism

    The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business
    Author: Courtwright, David
    Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2019


    Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture, and The Overworked American, and The Overspent American (reprint edition)
    Author: Schor, Juliet B.
    Publisher: Scribner, 2005

    Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture
    Author: Ewen, S.
    Publisher: Basic Books, 2001


    Confronting Consumption
    Editor: Princen, Thomas
    Publisher: MIT Press, 2002

    The High Price of Materialism
    Author: Kasser, Tim
    Publisher: MIT Press, 2002


    Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World
    Author: Kasser, Tim and Kanner, Allen
    Publisher: APA Books, 2004

    Culture, Place, Philosophy

    Craeft: an Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts
    Author: Langlands, Alexander
    Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019


    Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture and Story
    Author: Nabhan, Gary, Paul
    Publisher: Counterpoint, 1998


    Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect
    Author: Orr, David, Washington, D.C. and Covelo, California
    Publisher: Island Press, 1994


    Hind Swaraj and other writings
    Author: Gandhi, Mohandas
    Publisher: Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition, 1997

    Humankind
    Author: Bergman, Rutger
    Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2020


    A Language Older Than Words
    Author: Jensen, Derrick
    Publisher: New York: Context Books, 2000


    Last Child in the Woods
    Author: Louv, Richard
    Publisher: Workman Publishing, 2008


    Lost Connections
    Author: Hari, Johann
    Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2018

    The Practice of the Wild
    Author: Snyder, Gary
    Publisher: Counterpoint, 2010


    Seeds of Peace
    Author: Sivaraksa, Sulak
    Publisher: Parallax Press, 1992


    The Snow Leopard
    Author: Matthiessen, Peter
    Publisher: Penguin Books, 1978


    Team Human (1st edition)
    Author: Rushkoff, Douglas
    Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019


    Walden: Or, Life in the Woods New Edition
    Author: Thoreau, Henry David
    Publisher: Dover Publications Inc, 1995

    About Ladakh - India

    Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh
    Author: Norberg-Hodge, Helena
    Publisher: Local Futures, 1991 (updated in 2016)

    Ladakh: Crossroads of High Asia (2nd edition)
    Author: Rizvi, Janet
    Publisher: Delhi: Oxford India Press, 1998

    Trekking in Ladakh (3rd edition)
    Author: Loram, Charlie
    Publisher: India Trekking Guides, a Trailblazer publication, 2004

    Further Resources

    Organizations
    for Change

    There is a flourishing of organizations everywhere working to create a better world. Search our list of organizations for change to discover, support, and possibly join some of them!

    Read more

    Films for
    Change

    Browse through our collection of interesting films and documentaries about the food industry, capitalism, fast fashion,
    including our film The Economics of Happiness.

    Read more

    Maps of
    Alternatives

    Find here a list of maps from different organizations to help visualize the many initiatives around the world seeking both to halt the destructive economy and build local alternatives.

    Read more
    • Learn about our work
      • Learn about Globalization
      • Learn about Localization
      • Learn about Big Picture Activism
    • Activist tools
      • COVID-19 response: let’s localize like never before
      • What you can do to localize now
      • Films for change
      • Recommended readings
      • Organizations for change
      • Independent media sources
      • Maps of alternatives
    • About
    • Contact
    • The Economics of Happiness
    • Learn & Take Action

    Sign up for our email updates

    Donate Now

    International Society for Ecology and Culture © Copyright 2021 | site by digiflip