You might not have thought of yourself as part of a movement. But chances are, if you're on our website reading this, you are a critical part of "The Movement"—a messy global mass of causes and activists working for social change. In Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being, and Why No One Saw It Coming, Paul Hawken challenges us to think about the larger forces working for widespread social change and how they connect seemingly disconnected issues, causes and activists.

In this thoughtful and well researched book, Hawken first looks at the environmental movement in the context of the growing struggle between conservationists and the rising industrialism of the 20^th Century. He chronicles how the “green” movement diversified into thousands of distinct initiatives, building to include broad representation and to become a vocal and powerful force.

Environmental protests invariably involve questions of power, corruption and mendacity, and are inherently connected to social justice. From Emerson and Thoreau to Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., individual leaders have had a profound impact on society, but the greatest impacts could only have been achieved by the grassroots movements that they inspired. The alignment between the environmental and social justice movements becomes wonderfully clear, as does the power of individuals coming together to change the status quo.

Hawken next looks at indigenous cultures and how they have staunchly defended bio-diversity in the face of growing globalization. Our history is replete with instances of new, powerful governments and industries running roughshod over indigenous peoples and their lands. Now that “modern societies” are starting to confront issues of carrying capacity and sustainability, the voices and values of indigenous cultures are gaining recognition and respect.

The contrast between issues of local sustainability and a worldwide hunger for commerce segues nicely into perhaps Hawken’s most powerful chapter, on citizen-led protests against trade policies enacted by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Hawken acknowledges tradeoffs embodied by the WTO and global free markets: the potential benefits of unregulated global production and free trade often mean a sacrifice of local and regional ability to establish environmental standards, minimum work conditions and sustainable production levels. Hawken concludes, “What the WTO seeks to protect is business and growth, not people and the environment, with an underlying assumption that the wealthier a country becomes, the better it is able to protect its people and its environment. It has not turned out that way.”

Hawken laments the lack of connection between the many grassroots initiatives with similar struggles and goals. His solution is to weave these uncoordinated efforts together in one overarching global fight for social change: “The Movement.” Hawken recognizes the power of individual grassroots organizations and the diversity of thought among them: “Because the movement is not an ideology, there can be no concision of goals, no succinct slogans representative of the whole. It is a body of thought that coheres into a values system but not a belief system; it is a confluence of evolving ideas that never ceases; a creator of choice, actions, and solutions that confront suffering and degradations visited upon people and the earth.”

At the same time, he calls strongly for greater integration and recognition of the shared values among us; he notes that the connections are there, and we’d all benefit from acting on them. “The fact that the movement is made up of pieces does not mean it can only work piecemeal,” he writes, and I wanted Blessed Unrest to weave the disparate efforts together even more forcefully. Certainly grassroots movements share an essential need to grow and acquire their own lives and power, but one of Hawken’s central ideas is the potential power of combining these efforts, and I think he lost an opportunity to push our thinking in that direction. Groups fighting for workers’ rights rarely sit down with wilderness preservation activists; those striving for racial equality may struggle to find much in common with climate change crusaders. But if we can engage with those who are different from us, find common ground, and work together wherever our goals overlap, we will all benefit from greater power and traction.

Much to his credit, Hawken doesn’t just stop with his last chapter and conclusions. A 112-page Appendix and his website, www.wiserearth.org, (see Featured Website in this issue) list information on all the organizations he researched and identified as part of The Movement. The collection of so many diverse organizations—along with an ever-growing body of tools, case studies and network members—is a tremendous resource, and perhaps the most important step in knitting together these remarkable and diverse efforts.

Whether you are fighting for Aboriginal rights in Australia or running a zebra rescue in Zimbabwe, whether you are consciously trying to build a movement or just working for change in your small corner of the world, Blessed Unrest is required reading. You’ll come away better informed and better prepared to leverage others’ work and collaborate to help communities—whether local, regional, national or global—steer their futures.