New Book: The Abundant Community

Posted by on March 20, 2011

A BK Currents Book

John McKnight and Peter Block
The Abundant Community
Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods

* By bestselling author Peter Block and legendary community researcher and organizer John McKnight

* Reveals the invisible but limiting impact that consumerism has had on the fabric of our families and communities

* Recommends how each of us, with our neighbors can reclaim our own capacity to create richer, more fulfilling lives and break our dependency on the consumer economy.

This book is about a new possibility for us together to discover the real basis for a satisfying life. It is a life that becomes possible when we join our neighbors in creating a community that nurtures our family and makes us useful citizens.

We are besieged by messages from consumer society telling us that we are insufficient. That we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside the community.  We outsource our healthcare, childcare, relationships, recreation, our safety and our satisfaction, We are trained to become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbors.  McKnight and Block take a thoughtful look at how this situation came about, what maintains it, and the crippling effect it has had on our families, our communities and our environment.

Right in our neighborhood we have the capacity to address our human needs in ways that systems, which see us only as interchangeable units, as problems to be solved, never can. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. It does not matter how rich or poor the neighborhood. McKnight and Block suggest how to nurture voluntary, self-organizing structures that will reveal these gifts and allow them to be shared to the greatest mutual benefit. They recommend roles we can assume, actions we can take to reweave the social fabric that has been unraveled by consumerism and its belief that however much we have, it is not enough.

This book includes practical guidelines on how each neighborhood has people with the gifts and talents needed to provide for our prosperity and peace of mind. We do not need paid professionals to raise our children, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, and care for our vulnerable people. It gives voice to the ideal of an abundant community. It reminds us of our power to create a hope-filled life. It assures us that when we join together with our neighbors we are the architects of the future where we want to live.

John McKnight is Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University and is cofounder and codirector of the Assets Based Community Forum. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society.

Peter Block is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed by Peter to build the skills outlined in his books. He is the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How is Yes, and Community. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently the Organization Development Network’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Publication date: June 2010, $26.95, hardcover, 216 pages, 6 1/8” x 9 ¼”, ISBN  978-1-60509-584-4
$18.87, PDF ebook, ISBN 978-1-60509-626-1

Current Affairs     World rights available

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