Getting A Grip is a little book with a big call to action. Frances Moore Lappé takes on the very notion of what democracy means today and what we can do to bring about its full potential.

World-renowned food expert and activist (her first book, Diet for a Small Planet, has sold more than three million copies since first published in 1971), Lappé tackles the shortcomings of our current political and economic framework and gives us hope for the future by proposing a new lens through which to see and act in our world. Simple and effective graphics capture the book’s big ideas, and key themes are highlighted with poignant quotes.

Lappé makes many thought-provoking contrasts; one is her distinction between what she calls “Thin Democracy” and “Living Democracy.” Thin Democracy (what we’ve got today) has reduced civic participation to a point where “there isn’t much for us to do except show up at the polls and shop.” I found myself nodding along with many of her observations and was surprised at my own ignorance of just how imbalanced some parts of our democracy have become (she cites research that shows the lobbyist-to-elected- representative ratio in Washington, DC is 61:1).

In contrast, Living Democracy is “a way of life no longer done to us but (is) something we create.” Lappé proposes that this kind of democracy is dynamic, values guided, learned, power creating and everywhere. It goes beyond our interaction with government structures; it is a part of how we interact with others at work, at home and at play. We are all part of it; we are all responsible. Lappé provides a chapter with glimpses from around the U.S. and the world: examples include civic partnerships to bring healthy food to poor communities in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and the creation of “community benefits agreements” in several cities across the US, demonstrating how broad and diverse efforts can be. In case you are not sure whether you are engaged in Living Democracy, Lappé also provides a handy checklist.

What makes this shift possible? Lappé identifies “revolutions” in how we communicate and share knowledge, are connected through networks, share a common belief in human dignity and draw on ecological understanding in new ways. Focusing on one of these revolutions—knowledge sharing—Lappé notes how 85 percent of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s course materials are now online for anyone to access for free. And if you’ve surfed the Internet in search of best practices in community planning recently, you’ve probably come across a wealth of projects from which to learn.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that we share core values given all the media and political posturing over the years, but Lappé makes a strong case for a few including “fairness, inclusion and mutual accountability.” Citing examples of workforce training programs in San Antonio, Texas, and environmental stewardship in southern Oregon, she illustrates how we can move from how “they” are the problem to how “we” can work together—an essential step to solving the problems our society faces.

Lappé reframes the concepts of power and fear, two critical parts of the inertia inherent in our current sociopolitical context. Moving from the perception of power as something limited to the clutches of a few to its true meaning, “the capacity to act,” opens us all up to sharing in it. She also encourages us to think about how we respond to fear when we encounter that uncomfortable feeling of standing up to the status quo. She suggests that “we can learn to walk ever taller with our fear,” channeling it to help us meet our purpose. This courage is essential to questioning the establishment in how decisions affecting our communities are made today.

Lappé also helps to distinguish between issues, those “overwhelming” challenges we face, and entry points, those places where you can affect the root causes of an issue. To help illustrate this distinction, Lappé provides several examples including the passage of Clean Elections laws to reduce the influence of money in politics and programs like YouthBuild that empower young people to take positive action in their communities.

There is much good news in this book, but Lappé also acknowledges hard realities. She notes that things are getting worse and better at the same time and that under certain circumstances humans are capable of terrible acts. She cautions us to be aware of the conditions under which the terrible is possible, such as “extreme imbalances in power… anonymity that shields us from accountability… negative labeling that dehumanizes others…and the grip of absolutist ideologies that teach us to distrust our own common sense.” Lappé’s Living Democracy provides one way back from these conditions.

Getting a Grip is ultimately about reclaiming democracy, and it provides paths for each of us to find our parts in it. Lappé shows us that we are not alone in our perception of the current state of things. She demonstrates that our own efforts to strike out in new directions are leveraged by people all around the world who are solving problems and creating value in previously unimaginable ways. One quote from this book gave me the intuitive chills I get when I know something is right on: “joyful living, I’m convinced, happens when we hit that spot where a potent entry point that touches a root cause fires our own deep passions.” Who doesn’t want that kind of joy in their life?

Frances Moore Lappé and her daughter, Anna, run the Cambridge, MA-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education.  Lappé is the author or co-author of sixteen books, including the international bestseller Diet for a Small Planet; her writing focus on world hunger, social justice and democracy. Lappé also co-founded the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) in 1975, and the Center for Living Democracy initiative in 1990. She is a frequent public speaker and has received numerous awards, including seventeen honorary doctorates and the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the "Alternative Nobel."