An influential economist and profound thinker, E. F. Schumacher is widely known for his bestselling book Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered. In his later years he became an iconic figure who played a significant part in the development of the modern environmental movement. Small is Beautiful in the 21st Century traces his legacy over the years, helping us move towards practical solutions to our interrelated global crises. In particular, it describes how several flourishing organisations, some large and some small, have remained closely linked with his ideas and work, and have since become associated as the Schumacher Circle. The book both illuminates Schumacher's thinking and shows the ways in which each of us can help to build a more kind, just and ecologically sustainable society.

Winner of the 2014 John Collier Jr. Award Winner of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that these books can claim. Using archaeological approaches to human material culture, this volume offers unprecedented access to the middle-class American home through the kaleidoscopic lens of no-limits photography and many kinds of never-before acquired data about how people actually live their lives at home. Based on a rigorous, nine-year project at UCLA, this book has appeal not only to scientists but also to all people who share intense curiosity about what goes on at home in their neighborhoods. Many who read the book will see their own lives mirrored in these pages and can reflect on how other people cope with their mountains of possessions and other daily challenges. Readers abroad will be equally fascinated by the contrasts between their own kinds of materialism and the typical American experience. The book will interest a range of designers, builders, and architects as well as scholars and students who research various facets of U.S. and global consumerism, cultural history, and economic history.

Why are there more poor people with small bank accounts than rich people with big bank accounts? Why is the small almost always more numerous than the big in the world? Empirical examinations of real-life data overwhelmingly confirm the existence of such uneven size proportions in favor of the small. There are more small planets and stars than big ones in the cosmos. There are more small molecules than big molecules in the chemical world. There are more small families with few children than big families with many children. In geological data, there are more small rivers than big rivers, and there are more harmless small earthquakes than devastating big ones. There are by far many more small creatures than big creatures in the biological world. There are only about two million big whales swimming the oceans, yet there are over 300 billion small birds flying the sky. Tiny little ants are even more abundant, with estimates of over 100 trillions of them walking the earth In number theory as well, there are more small prime numbers than big prime numbers for integers. In census data, there are more villages than towns, more towns than cities, and more cities than metropolises. In history, there were more small wars with low death toll than horrific big wars with high death toll such as WWII. The vast list of topics & disciplines obeying this quantitative law of nature confirms the fact that the phenomenon is nearly universal. This book discusses in detail several real-life case studies; presents three distinct explanations for the phenomenon; and numerically quantifies the small is beautiful phenomenon in order to obtain an exact measure indicating by how much the relatively small is more numerous than the relatively big.

"This book discusses the economic impacts of outsourcing and off shoring to the developing countries and developed countries and the short term and long term implications"--Provided by publisher.

Could there ever be an alternative stock exchange dedicated to slow, small, and local? Could a million American families get their food from CSAs? What if you had to invest 50 percent of your assets within 50 miles of where you live?Such questions-at the heart of slow money-represent the first steps on our path to a new economy. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents an essential new strategy for investing in local food systems and introduces a group of fiduciary activists who are exploring what should come after industrial finance and industrial agriculture. Theirs is a vision for investing that puts soil fertility into return-on-investment calculations and serves people and place as much at it serves industry sectors and markets. Leading the charge is Woody Tasch-whose decades of work as a venture capitalist, foundation treasurer, and entrepreneur now shed new light on a truer, more beautiful, more prudent kind of fiduciary responsibility. He offers an alternative vision to the dusty old industrial concepts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when dollars, and the businesses they financed, lost their connection to place; slow money, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in the new economic, social, and environmental realities of the 21st century. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is a call to action for designing capital markets built around not extraction and consumption but preservation and restoration. Is it a movement or is it an investment strategy? Yes.

Capture the minds, hearts, and imaginations of 21st century readers! Whether you're a commercial storyteller or a literary novelist, whether your goal is to write a best-selling novel or captivate readers with a satisfying, beautifully written story, the key to success is the same: high-impact fiction. Writing 21st Century Fiction will help you write a novel for today's readers and market, filled with rich characters, compelling plots, and resonant themes. Author and literary agent Donald Maass shows you how to: • Create fiction that transcends genre, conjures characters who look and feel more "real" than real people, and shows readers the work around them in new ways. • Infuse every page with an electric current of emotional appeal and micro-tension. • Harness the power of parallels, symbols, metaphors, and more to illuminate your novel in a lasting way. • Develop a personalized method of writing that works for you. With an arsenal of thought-provoking prompts and questions, plus plenty of examples from best-selling titles, Writing 21st Century Fiction will strip away your preconceived notions about writing in today's world and give you the essential tools you need to create fiction that will leave both readers and critics in awe.