Civilization and the Transformation of Power - Softcover

Garrison, James A. Jr.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931044007 ISBN 13: 9781931044004

Publisher: Paraview Press, 2000

Synopsis

""Civilization And The Transformation Of Power" is an absorbing, provocative, scintillating account of the interiors of western history. Jim Garrison is one of the great visionaries of our time, and his account not only traces the rise of western culture, it points beyond it to a more integral, gracious, compassionate world, drawing on the best of East and West, feminine and masculine, to paint a picture of a more caring tomorrow."--Ken Wilbur, author of "A Brief History Of Everything."

About this title

About the Author

Jim Garrison was born of Baptist missionary parents in Szechuan Province, China, in 1951. From 1953-1965, he lived with his family in Taiwan. His early experiences set the stage for a life of engagement in international issues and social activism. As a Ph.D. student at Cambridge University (1975-1982), Garrison became engaged in the citizen diplomacy movement to reduce the nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In 1991, he founded the International Foreign Policy Association in collaboration with Georgian President Edward Shevardnadze and former Secretary of State George Schultz, focusing on providing humanitarian relief for children in the former Soviet republics. In 1992, at the behest of Mikhail Gorbachev, Dr. Garrison founded and became the President of the Gorbachev Foundation/USA. These two organizations set the stage for the establishment, in 1995, of the State of the World Forum, a San Francisco based non-profit institution created to establish a global network of leaders, citizens and institutions dedicated to discerning and implementing those principles, values and actions necessary to guide humanity toward a more sustainable global civilization. The Forum has convened roughly 4,000 people from over 100 countries to its annual sessions, which have launched and directed a number of action oriented strategic initiatives across a spectrum of areas.

Garrison’s degrees include: B.A. World History, University of Santa Clara; M.T.S., History of Religion, Harvard University; and Ph.D., Philosophical Theology, Cambridge University. He has written six books concerning the historical and theological implications of the advent of the nuclear age.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

At the turn of the millennium the world is burning. With these words begins the visionary new book by Jim Garrison. "Transformation is occurring in every sector, at every scale, in every dimension, continues Garrison. Nothing we have inherited from the past is able to withstand the accelerated pace of change; everything from the future remains a perpetual possibility. Society has become completely malleable to the power of science and technology; our mind, continually susceptible to novelty; our relationships, opened to new configurations and meanings It is almost unbelievable that 90 percent of everything that has been discovered or invented in the entire history of civilization has been invented or discovered in the past seventy﷓five years...Yet all these achievements have not made us more ethically balanced or more wise.

At the same time, notes Garrison, a global consciousness, spawned by economic globalization and mass communication, is for the first time uniting all of humanity into a single unit, bringing the six thousand discrete cultures and societies now existing around the world into sustained interaction. Human civilization is being reborn on a global scale.

How are we to understand the present, Garrison asks? Is the past framing our future or are we in a time of unprecedented newness? Both, says Garrison. We are in a time of novelty, and we are experiencing the repetition of very deep historical patterns. To be able to discern both alternatives, separately and together, is to be able to come to terms with the paradox of power, which characterizes our age.

In this deeply probing book, Garrison illustrates how this paradox lies at the very heart of our historical, psychological, and spiritual life.

Edition details

• Publisher: Paraview Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1931044007
• ISBN 13: 9781931044004
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 359