The Empowerment Manual is a comprehensive guide for collaborative groups seeking to organize with shared power and bottom-up leadership to foster vision, trust, accountability and responsibility for social change.
Starhawk has stepped forward to help the 99 percent camped in the streets from Syria and Bahrain to New York and London. To have power one needs to discover the ultimate tools of power - the ability to build friendships and to focus group attention on shared goals. This book provides the real formula for empowerment, in earthy detail, from family to village to culture to global movement. - Albert Bates, author The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change and The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Change
It's not easy to meld a sweeping vision with practical steps on how to implement it, but Starhawk has succeeded brilliantly in The Empowerment Manual. Filled with case histories, illustrative stories, and, most importantly, clearly written exercises for honing your collaborative skills, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in building community and truly empowering themselves and others. Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Strong, sustained leadership at the grassroots is more essential by the minute, given the failure of political and corporate power-holders to stop trashing our world. True social change is a collaborative art. Here's a trove of tips, guidelines, deft strategies and open secrets, that will speed and ease our capacity to work together. It comes to us with Starhawk's signature blend of vast experience, wit, and love for life.
Joanna Macy, author, The Work that Reconnects and co-author, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess we're in Without Going Crazy