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From What Is to What If
- Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
- Narrated by: Rob Hopkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
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From What Is to What If
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Summary
The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.
In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There’s a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing of ecosystems and communities beyond, it seems, repair. The future - to say nothing of the present - looks grim.
But as Transition movement cofounder Rob Hopkins tells us, there is plenty of evidence that things can change, and cultures can change, rapidly, dramatically, and unexpectedly - for the better. He has seen it happen around the world and in his own town of Totnes, England, where the community is becoming its own housing developer, energy company, enterprise incubator, and local food network - with cascading benefits to the community that extend far beyond the projects themselves.
We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now.
From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.
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Critic reviews
“Rob Hopkins has long been a leader in imagining how we could remake our societies for the benefit of nature and humankind. His new book is a powerful call to imagine a better world. It should be widely read and appreciated.” (Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; lead negotiator, Paris Climate Agreement)
What listeners say about From What Is to What If
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- Colman J. Power
- 02-04-24
Great Book
I love simpler books like this. That literally breakdown how important it is to do the simple things and have the system that is currently in place is not working.
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- Milkmoon Mama
- 02-03-20
What if everyone read this book...?
One of the most inspiring and important books I’ve read in a long time. A book I want to leave on park benches and buses, to give to every local school, politician, business and organisation. The hopeful, positive story we all really, really need right now.
I am filled with possibilities, and endless what if questions.
Thank you, Rob Hopkins for lighting my spark again.
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- Anna
- 27-01-22
Powerful and Passionate
Uplifting, powerful … and makes it all feel possible. I feel very glad to have read this book and feel less pessimistic about the future!
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- Anonymous User
- 04-04-20
Touching vision
amazing summary what we humans can do when we unleash creativity and imagine a better place.
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- KhayaR
- 28-03-21
An Important & Well-conveyed Message
This book reads like a manifesto; a movement I'd like to be part of. Asking What If and Why not opens up limitless possibilities; things I'd like to see improve in my own neighborhood, city, country and the world over. One cannot read this book and not be inspired to reimagine a better future.
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- JC
- 26-11-20
Outstanding
Essential listening for any human. I feel like a different person after listening to this. Inspiring and redefining problems we face as a human race. Never has a book like this been so relevant. It’s so refreshing to see the challenges we face through lens of What If and not feel like I’m being talked down upon. One of the most important books of the decade.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-07-21
It changes you!
I wish this will become mandatory in schools. A book that gives you hope when you had lost it. Inserts confidence and credibility to the power of imagination. It changes the table on all those “smart” politicians and business leaders that thought us to become “realistic” and ridiculed anything imaginative. Read. Get inspired. Do something!
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- KK
- 18-11-21
Highly Recommended
This book is full of ideas. It's a powerful argument for the importance of imagination.
I recommend it to anyone, especially those concerned about their community and the world.
There are so many exciting and encouraging ideas. It will help you to feel hopeful and empowered instead of anxious and overwhelmed by the climate breakdown and current political forces.
Everyone should read it!
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- Anonymous User
- 11-08-21
Everybody should hear this
This is hopeful and inspiring....we should all listen to this and take note. What if?
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- MR P.
- 19-10-20
Everyone should read this book! WHAT IF they did?
Rob Hopkins lands us right in tgereality of our social dilemma. Yet an abundant buoyancy of hope is provided by his careful researched examples and stories of positive projects from around the world. I feel inspired and fired, and ready to dream.
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