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:
-
- * thought-provoking explorations of localization alternatives;
- * hard-hitting critiques and analyses of globalization, corporate power and agribusiness;
- * cultural diversity versus monoculture; and more.
We hope you will find them equally rewarding reads. If you know of any additions that you feel should be included, please contact us.
Recent additions
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
Energy Transition and Economic Sufficiency
Edited by: Hawkins Kreps, Bart and Cobb, W. Clifford
Publisher: Post Carbon Institute, 2021
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
Energy Transition and Economic Sufficiency
Edited by: Hawkins Kreps, Bart and Cobb, W. Clifford
Publisher: Post Carbon Institute, 2021
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
Browse by category
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
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
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
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
A Year of Living Locally (free to download)
Author: Gorenflo, Neal and Mitchell, Stacy
Publisher: Shareable, 2021
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
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
Energy Transition and Economic Sufficiency
Edited by: Hawkins Kreps, Bart and Cobb, W. Clifford
Publisher: Post Carbon Institute, 2021
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
The New Possible: Visions of Our World Beyond Crises
Author: multiple (with essay by: Helena Norberg-Hodge, Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, and more)
Publisher: Cascade Books, 2021
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
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!
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’.
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.
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!
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’.
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.