New Books

I am excited to be starting a new book: Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon. This book investigates the interconnected relationship between metropolitan life and the natural environment. Cronon discusses this relationship in the context of Chicago and the Great West in the 19^th century.  Chicago served as the hub of human community and the environment in the modern capitalistic world through the developing commodity markets built on natural resources. The interconnected relationship between human institutions and the environment are more tightly linked then often recognized. These relationships must be understood if we want to understand the ecological consequences of our own lives and our institutions.

I am also starting to read The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods by John McKnight and Peter Block. I have been following Peter Block for about 3 years. His book Community: The Structure of Belonging was the most influential books in my thinking about community and organizing people to create a more meaningful future together. The Abundant Community takes a closer look at what a meaningful community looks like. The Abundant Community is one that recognizes that there is abundance from within the community – the gifts we have to contribute individually and the gifts of our neighbors are boundless. The greatest good comes from within the community not from services we can purchase or from outside experts and resources.  Gifts from the community are “amplified, magnified, productive and celebrated” in community through associating together. The true power of the Abundant Community grows from the relationships and associations we build with our neighbors. These connections are not accidents; the Abundant Community is intentional. The Abundant Community always seeks to show hospitality. “There are no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met yet.”

Both of these books encourage us to recognize the importance of relationships. We operate in complex environments that are always interdependent with other people, associations, institutions and the environment. We never have the luxury operating in a vacuum. Building successful organizations or Abundant Communities will be dependent on the degree we are able to understand and coordinate those relationships.


More to come on these books.