Soul of a Citizen awakens within us the desire and the ability to make our voices heard and our actions count. We can lead lives worthy of our convictions. A book of inspiration and integrity, Soul of a Citizen is an antidote to the twin scourges of modern life--powerlessness and cynicism. In his evocative style, Paul Loeb tells moving stories of ordinary Americans who have found unexpected fulfillment in social involvement. Through their example and Loeb's own wise and powerful lessons, we are compelled to move from passivity to participation. The reward of our action, we learn, is nothing less than a sense of connection and purpose not found in a purely personal life. Soul of a Citizen has become the handbook for budding social activists, veteran organizers, and anybody who wants to make a change—big or small—in the world around them. At this critical historical time , Paul Loeb's completely revised edition—and inspiring message—is more urgently important than ever.

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In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, a phrase borrowed from Billie Holliday, the editor of Soul of a Citizen brings together fifty stories and essays that range across nations, eras, wars, and political movements. Danusha Goska, an Indiana activist with a paralyzing physical disability, writes about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on her history with the Peace Corps and Mother Teresa. Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, finds value in seemingly doomed or futile actions taken by oppressed peoples. Rosemarie Freeney Harding recalls the music that sustained the civil rights movement, and Paxus Calta-Star recounts the powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria's dictatorship. Many of the essays are new, others classic works that continue to inspire. Together, these writers explore a path of heartfelt community involvement that leads beyond despair to compassion and hope. The voices collected in The Impossible Will Take a Little While will help keep us all working for a better world despite the obstacles.

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year: “Intelligent and impassioned, Citizen Scientist is essential reading for anyone interested in the natural world.” A Nautilus Award Winner in Ecology and Environment Award-winning writer Mary Ellen Hannibal has long reported on scientists’ efforts to protect vanishing species. But it was only through citizen science that she found she could take action herself. As she wades into tide pools, spots hawks, and scours mountains, she discovers the power of the heroic volunteers who are helping scientists measure—and even slow—today’s unprecedented mass extinction. Citizen science may be the future of large-scale field research—and “might be our last, best hope for solving myriad environmental predicaments” (Library Journal). our planet’s last, best hope. “Inspired by the likes of marine biologist Ed Ricketts, [Hannibal] records starfish die-offs, meets the geeks who track deforestation, and plans a web-based supercommunity of citizen scientists to counter what many are calling the sixth great extinction. A cogent call to action.” —Nature “Hannibal’s use of details verges on the sublime.” —East Hampton Star “[A] celebration of nonexperts’ contributions to science.” —Scientific American

This biography of Marcus Cato the Younger -- Rome's bravest statesman, an aristocratic soldier, a Stoic philosopher, and staunch defender of sacred Roman tradition -- is rich with resonances for current politics and contemporary notions of freedom.

Challenging prevailing media stereotypes, Generation at the Crossroads explores the beliefs and choices of the students who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s. For seven years, at over a hundred campuses in thirty states, Paul Loeb asked students about the values they held. He examines their concepts of responsibility, the links they draw between present and future, and how they view themselves in relation to the larger human community in which they live. He brings us a range of voices, from "I'm not that kind of person," to "I had to take a stand." Loeb looks at how the rest of us can serve young people as better role models, and give them courage and vision to help build a better world. This insightful book explores the culture of withdrawal that dominated American campuses through most of the eighties. He locates its roots in historical ignorance, relentless individualism, mistrust of social movements, and a general isolation from urgent realities. He examines why a steadily increasing minority has begun to take on critical public issues, whether environmental activism, apartheid, hunger and homelessness, affordable education, or racial and sexual equity. Loeb looks at individuals who have overcome precisely the barriers he has described, and how their journeys can become models. The generational choices he explores will shape our common future.

From post-inauguration rallies to #NoDAPL and the Black Lives Matter movement to the global Women’s March on Washington, the people are exercising their power through protest and community organizing in a way that hasn’t been seen in years. For those looking to organize for the first time or for seasoned activists looking to update their repertoire, the time is ripe for a playbook like Becoming a Citizen Activist. A longtime Seattle city councilmember and one of the city’s most effective and inspiring leaders of progressive political and social change since the 1960s, Nick Licata outlines how to get organized and master the tactics to create change by leveraging effective communication strategies (such as creating community through online channels like Facebook and Twitter), how to effectively engage traditional media channels, and how to congregate local and national people power. Licata demonstrates by example that we can fight city hall. Balancing an idealistic vision of a better world with the clear-eyed pragmatism necessary to build it from the ground up, this smart and powerful book will empower any activist with the tools they need to effect change.