The Most Important Ideas of the New Millennium

Thomas J. Elpel's
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The Most Important Books & Ideas of our Time
Reviews by Thomas J. Elpel

      If you could only learn about a handful of ideas in your lifetime what would they be? Through the pages that follow I have out-lined my favorite picks. This small handful of books, organizations, ideas, and people are the resources I consider essential to understanding the past, the present and the future of our world. These are people and ideas that are truly making the world a better place for all. Obviously these resources have been highly influential to my own thinking, living, and writing. When you read about these ideas you will easily recognize them as the roots behind my own book Direct Pointing to Real Wealth: Thomas J. Elpel's Field Guide to Money.

      Most environmental literature in circulation today promotes the idea that all human impact is bad, that we can never be a good influence on the world. The best we can hope for is to reduce our impacts to a point where the earth can absorb and sustain our presence. The reader is left with the impression that the only real way to make the world a better place is to get rid of people. Right or wrong, it is not a very useful perspective.

      Since early in high-school I have sought out the best ideas I could find about how we could live and prosper in harmony with the earth. I was consistently amazed to discover that there were already workable ideas for virtually all of our known problems, but just a lack of awareness about those ideas. However, not all of the books and ideas that follow are tools, some are educational only, to give a better understanding of the world we live in... always an essential step towards making positive change.

      The ideas are NOT listed in order from most to least important. Rather it is an intuitive order of ideas that build one upon the other. You are encouraged to read them in sequence. I will later add a few more pages to this series. The books suggested in these pages are available through Amazon.com.

Page 1: The Gaia Theory: James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis

Page 2: The Natural Way of Farming: Masanobu Fukuoka

Page 3: Holistic Resource Management: Allan Savory

Page 4: Rocky Mountain Institute: Amory and Hunter Lovins

Page 5: Cultural Evolution: Peter Farb/Marvin Harris

Page 6: Bionomics: Michael Rothschild

Page 7: The Engines of Creation: Eric Drexler

Page 8: The Cultural Evolution of Consciousnes: Julian Jaynes/Ken Wilber