Product Details
Free Press, February 2011
Trade Paperback, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1451610297
ISBN-13: 9781451610291
Description
The Story of Stuff, now available in paperback, offers an astonishing, galvanizing exploration of the stuff we use every day, revealing how overconsumption threatens the planet and our health, and providing hope that change is within reach.
The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.
From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.
With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic, keeping company with Silent Spring and An Inconvenient Truth .
The Story of Stuff was received with widespread enthusiasm in hardcover, by everyone from Stephen Colbert to Tavis Smiley to George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America, as well as far-reaching print and blog coverage. Uncovering and communicating a critically important idea—that there is an intentional system behind our patterns of consumption and disposal—Annie Leonard transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.
From sneaking into factories and dumps around the world to visiting textile workers in Haiti and children mining coltan for cell phones in the Congo, Leonard, named one of Time magazine’s 100 environmental heroes of 2009, highlights each step of the materials economy and its actual effect on the earth and the people who live near sites like these.
With curiosity, compassion, and humor, Leonard shares concrete steps for taking action at the individual and political level that will bring about sustainability, community health, and economic justice. Embraced by teachers, parents, churches, community centers, activists, and everyday readers, The Story of Stuff will be a long-lived classic, keeping company with Silent Spring and An Inconvenient Truth .
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“The intrepid Ann Leonard has written an eye-opening, humorous, and highly readable account of how our seemingly innocuous lifestyles are part of a larger system of destruction and dysfunction. Leonard gets my vote for hero of the year. A must-read.”
-- Juliet B. Schor, author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth and professor of sociology at Boston College
“Where others have documented countless challenges to the Earth and its inhabitants, Annie Leonard has accomplished the rare feat of defining the systemic nature of the problems we face and offering solutions that get to the heart of the matter. Whether you are redesigning industry and commerce or simply imagining a better world for your grandchildren’s grandchildren, Annie’s work will engage you. Read it and be inspired into action.”
-- Ray C. Anderson, founder and chairman, Interface, Inc.
“At once engaging, accessible, and authoritative, The Story of Stuff is a brilliant masterwork. Leonard weaves together engaging personal stories and encyclopedic knowledge of her subject to communicate a powerful systemic frame and define a spot-on agenda for practical action. I gained new facts, ideas, and inspiration. It gets my highest and most enthusiastic recommendation for anyone interested in why we humans are on a path to self-destruction and what we can do about it.”
-- David C. Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy and The Great Turning and board chair of YES! magazine
“When Annie Leonard came to work at the Center for Study of Responsive Law, she brought a special character--a dynamic curiosity; a willingness to scour the countries of the Earth to understand and document solid and chemical wastes’ production, consumption, and disposal; the intellectual and emotional intelligence to mobilize everyone she could reach to respect the ecosphere; and health and safety concerns. Those dynamic energies permeate her galvanizing, exciting, and fascinating book. You will be bouncing up and down as you are drawn through its pages, graphics, and engrossing stories. Annie Leonard not only knows ‘the story of stuff’--she has the right stuff!”
-- Ralph Nader
Guardian.co.uk, December 31, 2010
...Martin Stott, Oxford Three books published this year shine a light on different aspects of our current predicament. Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff (Constable & Robinson) analyses the "take-make-waste" economic model, taking us into "the ...
Metro Weekly, March 14, 2010
...the new age of travel, for a wide-ranging discussion (4/29) POLITICS AND PROSE 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW 202-364-1919 Annie Leonard -- The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities and Our Health - ...
NBC4.com, March 13, 2010
...Updated 4:45 PM EST, Fri, Mar 12, 2010 Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK SUSTAIN, DON'T COMPLAIN: Annie Leonard, creator of the runaway Web hit 'The Story of Stuff,' appears at Politics & Prose (5015 Connecticut Ave. N.W.). The ...
Huffington Post, March 10, 2010
...Environmental activist/consumerist critic Annie Leonard appeared on The Colbert Report Tuesday to discuss her new book, "The Story of Stuff," which was released Tuesday. The book is a follow-up to a viral video ...
Grist Magazine, March 9, 2010
...the stuff that went into making your iPod? Your cell phone? Your computer? The clothes you’re wearing? Annie Leonard did. And then she started talking to other people about it. You may have seen her animated 20-minute viral video, ...
PublishersWeekly.com, March 8, 2010
...Bang Bang (Grand Central Publishing, 978-0446552448, $25.99) goes on sale today. This evening, The Colbert Report interviews Annie Leonard, whose The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and ...
Philly.com, March 8, 2010
...Annie Leonard may live in California, but she has a prominent piece of Philadelphia on her desk. It's a jar of toxic incinerator ash, and the gray powder may well ...
TradingMarkets, February 22, 2010
...interactive events for the whole family through the month of March. INDIGO CEO HEATHER REISMAN IN CONVERSATION WITH ANNIE LEONARD In the Story of Stuff, environmental activist Annie Leonard tracks the life of everyday "stuff" to illuminate ...
Daily Green, January 1, 2010
...Annie Leonard aims for the roots of over consumption. The following is reprinted with permission from . In December 2007, Annie Leonard released the online video , which, in a lively graphic style ...
