Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

In Emergent Strategy, adrienne marree brown guides readers through recipes for shaping change, ourselves, and worlds. Inspired by the work of Octavia E. Butler, this nonfiction book imaginatively brings together science and sci-fi to explore our relationships with change. With loving attention to the body, spirit, and earth, Emergent Strategy is a lighthouse for change and the possible futures change offers.  Recommended By Alexis B., Powells.com

In the tradition of Octavia Butler, radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want.

Inspired by Octavia Butler's explorations of our human relationship to change, Emergent Strategy is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help designed to shape the futures we want to live. Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.

One of Literary Hub's Best Books of the 21st Century

“It was a revelation to discover Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy. She is matter of-fact about the coming destruction we face—of our environment, of our resources, of our governments. Her philosophy, based on Octavia Butler’s guiding philosophy of the Earthseed books, is that God Is Change. Rather than run from it or resist it, we should embrace it, look to what the plants, animals, and genomes can teach us about adapting to survive and to thrive.” —BuzzFeed

"Emergent Strategy offers a pattern language and nonlinear playbook for waging love in dark, uncertain times. As such, it is a must-read for any pragmatist seeking to develop the practical skills and expanded awareness needed to transform grief and trauma into hopeful movements for regeneration." —The Solutions Journal

“Adrienne has challenged me, enlightened me and reminded me that transformation happens in our natural world every day and we can borrow from it strategies to transform ourselves, our organizations, and our society.” —Denise Perry, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD)

Adrienne Maree Brown is a writer rooted in Detroit who now lives in Durham, NC. She is a student of the works of Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin. Some of her books include Octavia’s Brood, Pleasure Activism, and We Will Not Cancel Us. Her visionary fiction has appeared in The Funambulist, Harvard Design Review, Dark Mountain, and YES! Magazine.