BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

Since we first got to know Thom Hartmann a few years back (as is often the case on the Internet via e-mails and on the phone -- we only actually met him and his wife and partner, Louise, this last weekend when the BuzzFlash Editor, Mark Karlin, was on Thom's show, broadcast nationally out of Portland), he has become a lead high-profile progressive talk show host on Air America.

As we've said in our ongoing series of interviews with progressive talk show hosts, we like the different styles of so many of them. But we've developed a special relationship at BuzzFlash with Thom, who writes a monthly "Independent Thinker" book review exclusively for BuzzFlash.

We've come to find Thom an amazing renaissance man: an author, who manages to write acclaimed books while hosting a daily radio show programs (for a period, he was doing two radio shows a day: his nationally syndicated Air America program and a morning show on the powerhouse Portland progressive station, 62O KPOJ.) He's a traveler, an expert on ADD -- and he and Louise have owned several successful companies. And they're great parents to boot.

And anyone who listens to Thom's program quickly finds out, he's one of those people with an Encyclopedia for a brain.

Anyway, our visit with Thom and Louise inspired us to re-offer Hartmann's incredible book about saving planet earth and our species: "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" (Revised and Updated).

From the publisher: "While everything appears to be collapsing around us -- ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, the end of cheap oil, water shortages, global famine, wars -- we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's web movie Global Warning, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture?s blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem. Thom Hartmann's comprehensive book, originally published in 1998, has become one of the fundamental handbooks of the environmental activist movement. Now, with fresh, updated material and a focus on political activism and its effect on corporate behavior, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight helps us understand--and heal--our relationship to the world, to each other, and to our natural resources."

An Online Reviewer:

"Thom Hartmann's "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" is extremely important and cogent, and needs to be read and absorbed by many to ensure the possibility of a future for the human race and all other life on Earth. Divided into three main parts, this book explains in detail where we are, how and why we got here, and what we can do for a brighter future. Very practical, well-researched, comprehensive. I am not aware of a better book on the issues, especially since it not only sets out the realities of our situation (dependence on dwindling oil and clean-water supplies, destruction of forests and plant/animal species, unsustainable population growth, frequent wars, third-world and first-world impoverishment, etc.), but also explains why, fundamentally, human civilization has gotten us into this mess (tracing the causes back thousands of years to the basis of civilization and comparing the recent city-state or nation-state lifestyle to that of the much older tribe), and what we can possibly do to change our course and save our children and their children and the planet they will inherit.

I would give a more detailed or articulate description, but I lent my copy out the day I finished reading it, and several people are already waiting in line to borrow it. If there is a book to buy multiple copies of and give away, this is the best one I have found. Do not let it sit on the bookshelf indefinitely - after you read it, pass it around, from one person to another, making sure it never stays the same place, unread, for long. If you must keep a copy for your own reference, at least buy a second one to pass around to your friends."

Another Online Reviewer:

"I was shocked, entertained, surprised, touched and extremely moved by the contents of this well written eye-opening book. Opposed to other peak-oil subject books this book is not concentrating on the numbers and technical solutions but on our cultural roots and our pathological and illogical behavior as a result. The spiritual part of this book did not bother me at all despite the fact that I don't consider myself as a very spiritual person. I can fully understand his strong arguments to dig into our roots and that we must learn from the point we strayed to the path of superior feeling, materialism, short-term profits, etc... Hartmann delivers his point very well and I recommend this book to all people who think that we can work our way out of this mess we are in by wishfull thinking or technological inventions and to all people who see no way out of it at all (so this are about all people in the industrialized world). We only have to reinvent ourselves and this book shows us the way. Without a doubt one of the top five most important books I have ever read in my life if not the number one. I even think that this book should be read by all children in every school in Europe and America!"


BUZZFLASH REVIEWS