Book of the Week 3 – Local is Our Future

Local is Our Future by Helena Norberg-Hodge

This book, Local is Our Future is a book about globilisation and about hope. HNH spent time observing the people of Ladakh, known as Little Tibet as they have been affected by the outside world. Their happy and peaceful existence was destroyed by the incroachment of progress. Rather, what we generally think of as progress. From her observations she began to see the world with new eyes. This book is one of the results of that process od re-seeing the world. It is a strangely uplifting and full of hope.

Difficult Read

This not a book that I bought and chose, it would not have been. The book a present and I was put off it when I glanced through the first chapter. The prose seemed to be dense and difficult. To me many of the doom laden pronouncements seemed to be presented as if they were written in stone, without evidence. It was, I assumed, one of those strident treatises written by true believers of whatever the latest neo-political fad happened to be.

I was wrong.

I knew that I ought to do my friend the courtesy reading it so that we can discuss it, As a result, I began to read it properly and found that I was so wrong about this book. Yes, I found the language difficult and I would have liked more references. However the book made perfect sense and it is not a difficult read, but it starts as a depressing one. Local is Our Future begins by identifying and illustrating what is wrong with globilisation. There are so many examples. Shipping fish half the way across the world for filliting. The shipping the fish back to be sold. Exporting and importing similar food stuffs. This is rediculous. The decline of our mental and physical health. The loss of true democracy and the increase in polution. The list of problems goes on, and on.

It is a bleak and depressing picture that most of us know and understand, but really do not want to dwell on. This book paints this picture in detail and makes us take it all in.

Uplifting

Having spent the first 40 odd pages setting out the problem HNH spends the next 80 pages setting out her vision of how we change our future. How we should source food locally, grow our own if possible. There is advice on how to deploy counter arguments against the doom sayers. There are chapters that make you see that we can turn this whole thing arround.

The problem is that sometimes it seemed so difficult that I caught myself thinking that this was all pie in the sky stuff. The problem was just too big, where to begin? HNH has the answer, she sets out what is already happening. Forget large organisations what we should be looking at are the small green shoots of change. Globilisation will be defeated by individuals taking small steps.

Local is Our Future, Conclusion

Local is Our Future is a book of hope. It is difficult and even turgid (to my mind) at the start. Would I ever have bought it for myself? No. Is Local is Our Future, an important book? Oh yes. Have I changed my life because of it? Not yet. Has it started an internal dialogue that might well result in a change in my behaviour? Yes.

Would I recommend it as a book that is important and that should command a bigger audience? In other words, should you read it? A resounding YES.

You can find it at Amazon, here.

Books of the Week, Previous Reviews

Week 1, The Death of Grass

Week 2, At Risk by Stella Rimington

Tags: globilisation, Helena Hodge, Helena Norberg-Hodge, local is our future