Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad by Frances Moore Lappe

From the Publisher

Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity & Courage in a World Gone Mad is a little book with a big message. Frances Moore Lappe--author of fifteen books, including three-million-copy bestseller Diet for a Small Planet--distills her world-spanning experience and wisdom in a conversational yet hard-hitting style to creat a rare "aha" book. In nine short chapters, Lappe leaves readers feeling liberated and courageous. She flouts conventional right-versus-left divisions and affirms readers' basic sanity--their intuitive knowledge that it is possible to stop grasping at straws and grasp the real roots of today's crises, from hunger and poverty to climate change and terrorism. Because we are creatures of the mind, says Lappe, it is the power of "frame"--our core assumptions about how the world works--that determines outcomes. She pinpoints the dominant failing frame now driving out planet toward disaster. By interweaving fresh insights, startling facts, and stirring vignettes of ordinary people pursuing creative solutions to our most pressing global problems, Lappe uncovers a new, empowering "frame" through which real solutions are emerging worldwide.

She write: "My book's intent is to enable us to see what is happening all around us but is still invisible to most of us. It is about people in all walks pf life who are penetrating the spiral of despair and reversing it with new ideas, ingenious innovation--and courage."

Publishers Weekly

This determinedly optimistic manifesto-cum-workbook by the author of Diet for a Small Planetbegins with the question, "Why are we as societies creating a world that we as individuals abhor?" Lappé posits that U.S. culture is grounded in a worldview of scarcity, creating a society of "competitive materialists" who practice a "Thin Democracy" of electoral politics in a "one rule" market economy that returns wealth to wealth and leads to an ever-increasing concentration of power." Yet she believes there is "no reason we can't" create a values-guided, empowering democracy based on the premise of "plenty," where individuals and communities take charge of public life and engage in active listening, conflict mediation, dialogue and judgment. Full of charts comparing "Thin Democracy" constructs with "Living Democracy" alternatives, and ending with a study guide for community "Group Talk," the book includes numerous examples of people practicing "Living Democracy," from Nobel Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus, instigator of the international microcredit movement, to School Mediation Associates, which teaches conflict resolution and peer mediations skills. Unfortunately, Lappé's coverage of many of these inspiring stories is unintelligibly thin, too often referring readers to her Web site for backup. (Oct. 31)

Rachel Bridgewater - Library Journal

Prominent author (Diet for a Small Planet), activist, and advocate, Lappé now offers a slim manifesto that promises to show readers how to reframe their understanding of democracy as a way out of what she refers to as a "spiral of powerlessness." Lappé argues that our current definition of democracy, "elections plus a market," creates benefits for corporate interests and the rich but not for the average citizen. She argues for a dynamic, values-driven model of democracy that she calls "Living Democracy." As a manifesto, the work is mostly effective. Lappé rallies her readers, striking a welcome tone of hope and optimism, and many of her reframing techniques are compelling and inspiring. Unfortunately, she peppers the book with facts and statistics that are too decontextualized to work as evidence. She does better when she draws on inspiring anecdotes from people and communities practicing the kind of democratic principles she describes. Lappé is a prominent thinker; most public and academic libraries should consider this title.

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