Author: Douglas Murphy File Type: mobi Whatever happened to the last utopian dreams of the city? In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster the height of the Cold War, the end of oil and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation that hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the 60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant-garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures. **Review No one warns you that when you get old eras that you lived through are, to the next generation, history. And it is salutory to have one of the wilder fringes of that history recounted with the acuity, sympathy and fluency Douglas Murphy brings to it. The cast is extraordinary oddballs, philosophers, seersand a few frauds. Jonathan Meades Murphy tells the story of this counter-revolution pithily and well A fresh and haunting way of explaining what happened to the radical 60s and 70s as a whole, in Murphys view quite possibly the last chance the west had of creating a decent and environmentally sustainable society. Andy Beckett, *Guardian* In Last Futures, such one-time commonplaces as three day weeks, the elimination of labour, geodesic domes, walking cities, space colonies and industrialised housing are removed from dimwitted wheres my jetpack nostalgia and put back into history. In so doing, Douglas Murphy performs the useful service of making clear when the ideas of the unrealised futures of the 1960s and 1970s were stupid and wasteful, and when they were exceptionally smartserious solutions to problems we still havent solved, and problems we seem intent on making considerably worse. Last Futuresis the Silent Running to contemporary architectures The Fountainhead. Owen Hatherley, author of *Landscapes of Communism* A fluent, chronological narrative in which oddities from the recent past form sequences in an unfolding drama Murphy deploys his storytelling with great effect. *Architecture Today* About the Author Douglas Murphy trained as an architect at the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and is currently architecture correspondent at Icon magazine, as well as writing for a wide range of publications on architecture, fine art and photography. His first book was The Architecture of Failure.

Author: Timothy A. Wise File Type: pdf A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expertFew challenges are more daunting than feeding a global population projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050at a time when climate change is making it increasingly difficult to successfully grow crops. In response, corporate and philanthropic leaders have called for major investments in industrial agriculture, including genetically modified seed technologies. Reporting from Africa, Mexico, India, and the United States, Timothy A. Wises Eating Tomorrow discovers how in country after country agribusiness and its well-heeled philanthropic promoters have hijacked food policies to feed corporate interests. Most of the world, Wise reveals, is fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, people with few resources and simple tools but a keen understanding of what and how to grow food. These same farmerswho already grow more than 70 percent of the food eaten in developing countriescan show the way forward as the world warms and population increases. Wise takes readers to remote villages to see how farmers are rebuilding soils with ecologically sound practices and nourishing a diversity of native crops without chemicals or imported seeds. They are growing more and healthier food in the process, they are not just victims in the climate drama but protagonists who have much to teach us all.Review Read Eating Tomorrow. . . . This book promises to outrage and inform you to say no to agribusiness. Its well-written, inspiring, and incisive. Counterpunch Wise does see hope in the small-plot farmers of the world who are rising in protest. His report will interest readers concerned about human rights and the environment. Booklist A grave and timely look at the future of feeding the planet. Kirkus Reviews Eating Tomorrow is a wake-up call about the future of food. Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World? and Soil Not Oil Wise exposes our consuming obsession with corporate agriculture. Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet I recommend Eating Tomorrow to anyone who wants to understand how the industrial food system is destroying our health, biosphere, and food culture. Million Belay, coordinator, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa Wises writing is riveting. Ricardo J. Salvador, director and senior scientist, Food & Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists Eating Tomorrow is a tour de force on the global struggle for economic, social, and cultural rights, guided by a writer who takes us into corporate boardrooms and farmers fields. Salil Shetty, former secretary general, Amnesty International, and currently senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Tim Wises Eating Tomorrow reveals the stunning disconnect between what is needed to address future food shocks and the scheme by multinational corporations to squeeze every penny from the poorest people in the world. Wenonah Hauter, author of Foodopoly The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America and executive director of Food & Water Watch There is a battle for the future of food, and Eating Tomorrow shifts the frontlines. Oliver De Schutter, co-chair, International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food About the Author Timothy A. Wise is a senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute, where he directs the Land and Food Rights Program. He is also a senior research fellow at Tufts Universitys Global Development and Environment Institute, where he founded and directed its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. He previously served as executive director of the U.S.-based aid agency Grassroots International.He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.