Civilization and the Transformation of Power

""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."

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.