Rating: 
Summary: Empowering
Review: Accessible, comprehensive, and inspiring. The Better World Handbook is an incredible resource for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on the world. These authors take a critical look at environmental, social, and political issues from an uncommon angle by addressing the question: what can I do? I felt empowered after reading this book because it's such a practical, hands-on guide. I'll be using it for years to come!
Rating:
Summary: Empowering
Review: Accessible, comprehensive, and inspiring. The Better World Handbook is an incredible resource for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on the world. These authors take a critical look at environmental, social, and political issues from an uncommon angle by addressing the question: what can I do? I felt empowered after reading this book because it's such a practical, hands-on guide. I'll be using it for years to come!
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring and well researched
Review: Do you remember the book "50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save the Earth"? I loved that book because it gave me simple actions I could take at home to help do my part to protect the environment. It was well researched--yet easy to read. The Better World Handbook is a lot like "50 Simple Things..." but it applies to a lot of other important issues I care about not just the environment--like empowering poor communities, embracing diversity, and simplifying my life. The book is full of actions like: socially responsible investing, interesting magazines/websites I had never heard of, and a shopping guide that ranks how responsible different corporations are. After reading it, I felt (and still feel) excited and hopeful about what I can do to improve the world (sounds idealistic I know ;-)
Rating:
Summary: Practice What You Preach
Review: I LOVED this book. It gives all kinds of good practical advice on how every day actions really CAN make a difference. It cites a lot of other great books too that you can read in further detail about the things that are mentioned in the book which i really appreciate.
When I first read this book I was a student activist who thought that i always needed to do BIG things to change the world. Some of the little things that i would do made me feel different from the rest of my friends and make me feel like i was not doing enough. This book affirmed some of my decisions and made me feel serious about doing more.
This book is a good guide to actually living to make the world a better place! There are a lot of issues in the book that can and MUST be further researched but I think that the authors do a wonderful job at encouraging you to actually do so by suggesting books and websites to get you started. Its good for what it is: a guide to how to live. And it can point you in great directions for further more academic exploration of the issues that are presented.
I will say that I have used this book as MY BIBLE to living. I would suggest this in addition to Sojourners magazine to those who want to look at these same issues from a Christian perspective
Rating:
Summary: Be the change you're hoping for.
Review: Mahatma Gandhi said that we must be the change we wish to see in the world (p. 1). This is also the premise of THE BETTER WORLD HANDBOOK, which demonstrates that you don't have to be a Ghandhi, Mother Teresa, Cesar Chavez, or Martin Luther King, Jr. to make a positive difference in the world. By turning our good intentions into everyday actions, even ordinary people can make a profound impact on our local and global communities.The authors of this definitive, 291-page handbook are college instructors and Ph.D candidates at the University of Colorado, Boulder. (Okay, so some Boulder residents believe that the rest of the planet rotates around our city. But when it comes to serious issues of land development, diversity, endangered species, public smoking, chain stores and restaurants, shopping malls, alternatives to SUVs, and recycling, there is indeed much for the rest of our country to learn from this very special community.) THE BETTER WORLD HANDBOOK first identifies the problems facing our planet. For instance, while "we have become a nation of sleepwalkers" (p. 1), the wealthiest 20 percent of the world's population earns 30 times as much income as the poorest 20 percent (p. 13). The average American CEO makes 475 times as much as the average worker (p. 13). The richest 1 percent of Americans own almost as much wealth as the bottom 95 percent of the U. S. population (p. 14). The average American consumes as much energy as two Germans, six Mexicans, twelve Chinese, twenty-nine Indians, or 117 Bangladeshi (p. 25). Air pollution kills nearly 70,000 Americans every year (p. 25). Development results in the extinction of 137 species each day, while the world's population grows by 212,000 people a day (p. 26). Our children watch 20,000 to 40,000 commercials on television every year (p. 42). After confronting these alarming statistics, in an easy-to-read format, the HANDBOOK then reveals how we can make the world a better place through our actions involving money, shopping, food, friends and family, community, work, transportation, and travel. For example, the authors encourage us to vote, invest in socially responsible companies, take a daily walk, get to know our neighbors, ride a bike to work or take the bus, work less, shop locally and buy less stuff, eat organic foods and less meat, watch less tv, volunteer, recycle, and appreciate others. They even go so far as to offer suggestions for our personal transformation, cultivating emotional and spiritual well-being, maintaining physical health, and taking time for reflection in our lives. Offering us words to live by, THE BETTER WORLD HANDBOOK is sure to become a trusted resource for anyone hoping to change the world through the power of one. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: MY PERSONAL BIBLE
Review: Most of us want to do what is right but lack the proper information to realize our deepest values in action. We want to save the rainforest, purchase products that are ecologically sound, end war, famine, and every other ill that plagues humanity, but we have very little understanding of the larger impacts of our actions. This book clarifies our relationship with the rest of the globe and helps us turn our values into effective action.
The "challenges" this book identifies include economic inequality, Third World debt, corporate sweatshops, war, militarization, the death penalty, media violence, natural resource depletion, air pollution and climate change, ecosystem destruction, overpopulation, lack of democracy, money in politics, media monopoly, inequality of women, racism, heterosexism, inadequate health care, prisons, advertising overload, commercialization of childhood, materialism and overconsumption and the fragmentation of our communities - which just about covers everything.
Not to worry, though, the first chapter of the book outlines "the cycle of cynicism" and its alternative philosophy, "the cycle of hope." Reading that will help you avoid feeling depressed and overwhelmed - because, let's face, the problems we face today are quite overwhelming.
After tackling apathy, the book gets right to the heart of the matter - ACTION. From banking and investing to travel and family life, you will be introduced to hundreds of everyday actions that, even if done by only one person, would make vital impact on the above-addressed issues.
The variety of facts and recommendations show extreme breadth of research and awareness on the part of the authors. Furthermore, you find tons of links and references to websites and organizations, further reading suggestions, alternative media venues, and a listing of action-alert email lists and alternative newsgroups.
"The Better World Handbook" is nothing short of a bible for the new millennium. It is the book I have always wanted but that never existed until now. Pick up a copy and start living your values. You might also want to check out The Better World Handbook website, which any search should locate.
Hands down, the most practical and informative resource available for those interested in living an ethical life.
A MUST HAVE
Rating:
Summary: Simple changes in our lives can make a big difference.
Review: The Better World Handbook is an amazing guide to healthy everyday living. It has information on how to better ourselves individually and how we can include ourselves in the community to make it a better place for everyone. It has a great shopping guide to choose the best stores, who are the most environmentally and socially friendly, to shop at. Brett Johnson is an excellent sociologist and writer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make a positive change, without having to live in a tree.
Rating:
Summary: Simple changes in our lives can make a big difference.
Review: The Better World Handbook is an amazing guide to healthy everyday living. It has information on how to better ourselves individually and how we can include ourselves in the community to make it a better place for everyone. It has a great shopping guide to choose the best stores, who are the most environmentally and socially friendly, to shop at. Brett Johnson is an excellent sociologist and writer. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make a positive change, without having to live in a tree.
Rating: 
Summary: Brian Ladd's Review (Boulder, CO)
Review: The Better World Handbook is an inspiring and refreshingly different kind of "how-to" guide for people seeking to embody their hopes for a more just and caring world. By touching on all the major areas of our daily activities, authors Jones, Haenfler and Johnson ably negotiate the interconnectedness that describes our personal, economic, environmental and political relationships. I was impressed both with the Better World Handbook's comprehensibility and with the logic of its organization. Straighforward subject headings, relevant chapter introductions, and an easy-to-understand presentation of opportunities for personal and collective action define the book. Some readers may label the book as "progressive" and dismiss it because of its advocacy of a number of social change organizations that might also be labelled as such, but I think the book can prompt any of us--wherever we are on the religious or political spectrums--to explore the various aspects of our lives with a view towards justice and sustainability. The book also tends to be counter-cultural even while meeting the reader right where s/he is, integrated into the dominant culture. The Better World Handbook frequently sheds needed light on many of the disintegrating and unhealthy forces of our modern society. I liked the margin notes and text boxes scattered throughout the book that provide compelling facts and statistics, lending weight to the authors' arguments for the suggested courses of action in each chapter. One part of the book that I especially liked but was disappointed not to see more of was the inclusion of the authors' personal stories and experiences. In the chapter on travel, for example, co-author Ross Haenfler relates his experience, while travelling in the American Southwest, of choosing to buy a hand-woven rug directly from a Navajo woman rather than through a retail tourist shop in the area. I would have enjoyed hearing more from Ross and also from the other authors about the personal experiences (both positive and negative) they've had while trying to put their own suggestions into action. This might have helped bring the authors further into dialog with their readers. The Better World Handbook is a wonderful and timely book. I wish to thank the authors for the huge commitment they have made to this project; it is a gift to all of us who hope for a better world and wish somehow to be signposts of that new reality. Brian Ladd
Boulder, CO December 8, 2001
Rating:
Summary: Brian Ladd's Review (Boulder, CO)
Review: The Better World Handbook is an inspiring and refreshingly different kind of "how-to" guide for people seeking to embody their hopes for a more just and caring world. By touching on all the major areas of our daily activities, authors Jones, Haenfler and Johnson ably negotiate the interconnectedness that describes our personal, economic, environmental and political relationships. I was impressed both with the Better World Handbook's comprehensibility and with the logic of its organization. Straighforward subject headings, relevant chapter introductions, and an easy-to-understand presentation of opportunities for personal and collective action define the book. Some readers may label the book as "progressive" and dismiss it because of its advocacy of a number of social change organizations that might also be labelled as such, but I think the book can prompt any of us--wherever we are on the religious or political spectrums--to explore the various aspects of our lives with a view towards justice and sustainability. The book also tends to be counter-cultural even while meeting the reader right where s/he is, integrated into the dominant culture. The Better World Handbook frequently sheds needed light on many of the disintegrating and unhealthy forces of our modern society. I liked the margin notes and text boxes scattered throughout the book that provide compelling facts and statistics, lending weight to the authors' arguments for the suggested courses of action in each chapter. One part of the book that I especially liked but was disappointed not to see more of was the inclusion of the authors' personal stories and experiences. In the chapter on travel, for example, co-author Ross Haenfler relates his experience, while travelling in the American Southwest, of choosing to buy a hand-woven rug directly from a Navajo woman rather than through a retail tourist shop in the area. I would have enjoyed hearing more from Ross and also from the other authors about the personal experiences (both positive and negative) they've had while trying to put their own suggestions into action. This might have helped bring the authors further into dialog with their readers. The Better World Handbook is a wonderful and timely book. I wish to thank the authors for the huge commitment they have made to this project; it is a gift to all of us who hope for a better world and wish somehow to be signposts of that new reality. Brian Ladd
Boulder, CO December 8, 2001
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