The Thom Hartmann Reader (BK Currents)

Hartmann is perhaps best known for his fierce commitment to Jeffersonian democracy and his steadfast opposition to the corporatization of America. But in these pages you'll also discover his Older and Younger Cultures hypothesis, which identifies the root cause of so many of our social and environmental ills. You'll hear from Hartmann on how to keep our schools from treating children like assembly line products, why attention deficit disorder is not an affliction, what cloudy Germany can teach us about solar energy, and much more.

Fascinating as these essays are, they're ultimately meant to inspire you to action. As Hartmann says at the end of every radio program, "Get out there, get active! Tag, you're it!"

It’s hard to pigeonhole Thom Hartmann. He has a unique synthesis of qualities not often found in one person: a scholar’s love of history, a scientist’s zeal for facts, a visionary’s seeking after truth, an explorer’s appetite for adventure and novelty. In addition to being the nation’s number one progressive radio host, he’s been an ad man, a psychotherapist, a private detective, and a homeopath. His writings encompass politics, history, ecology, psychology, and spirituality, among other subjects.

Even Hartmann’s millions of loyal listeners and readers will be amazed at the breadth of his thought as evidenced by The Thom Hartmann Reader. Editor Tai Moses has pulled together Hartmann’s writings from a dozen books and other sources to present a comprehensive picture of where Hartmann’s wide-ranging intellect has led him over the past thirty years.

Hartmann is perhaps best known as a political thinker, and essays throughout this book express—in his characteristic impassioned and lucid style—his fierce commitment to Jeffersonian democracy and his virulent opposition to the corporatization of America. But you’ll also discover his Older and Younger Cultures hypothesis, which identifies the root cause of so many of our social and environmental ills and points the way to a solution. You’ll hear from Hartmann on how to keep our schools from treating children like assembly line products, why attention deficit disorder is not an affliction, and what cloudy Germany can teach us about solar energy. You’ll meet the remarkable Gottfried Müller, Hartmann’s mentor and the founder of the humanitarian organization Salem International. You’ll join Hartmann on fact-finding trips to Uganda, Russia, and four-thousand-year-old ruins in Peru.

As fascinating as these and other topics in The Hartmann Reader are, Hartmann’s deepest aspiration has always been that his audience do more than just listen or read, that they become active, awakened agents of change. These essays are meant to inspire and motivate, to spur you to take some kind of action. As Hartmann says at the end of every radio program, “Get out there, get active! Tag, you’re it!”

Connecting the dots... Whether he is writing about presidential power or children with learning disabilities, Thom Hartmann is uniquely able to see the patterns and the root causes of our problems as a people. This book has been compiled from fourteen previously published sources in a completely new and original way. More than thirty different contributions have been included. Subjects include the environmental crisis, lost jobs, media control, sexism, healing democracy, the lessons of ADD, corporate power, the nature of community, and much more. With an introduction that pulls it all together, updates on Thom’s thinking throughout, and interesting editorial asides, this new volume makes for an amazing compilation of Thom’s best writing.

Thom Hartmann is the nation’s leading progressive talk radio host, heard on over a hundred stations, as well as on XM and Sirius radio, and seen on live nationwide television via the Free Speech TV network. He is also a four-time Project Censored-award-winning and bestselling author of twenty one books, including Unequal Protection, Threshold, Screwed, Cracking the Code, and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. In addition, Hartmann is an entrepreneur, an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, he has helped set up hospitals, schools, famine relief programs, and communities for orphaned or blind children throughout the world.

Introduction

Part I: Breaking Points

Part II: Democracy and Community

Part III: Visions and Visionaries

Part IV: Fighting the Corporatocracy

Part V: Earth and Edges

Part VI: Journeys

Part VII: Knowledge and Knowing