David Korten/The Great Turning

David Korten’s classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination, and with far greater consequences.

In The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely a contemporary manifestation of what he defines as "Empire"—the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years—fortune for the few and misery for the many. Now, thanks to modern technologies, the way of Empire is increasingly destructive to children, family, community, and nature itself, rapidly leading us all to the brink of worldwide environmental and social collapse.

Korten makes the case that we are a species with the power of choice, and that at this defining moment in history, humanity faces both the opportunity and the imperative to choose our future in a conscious collective manner. A mounting perfect economic storm is fast approaching. A convergence of climate change, the fast approaching peak and decline in oil production, and the financial instability inherent in an unbalanced global trading system will bring an unraveling of the corporate-led global economy and a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life—whether we like it or not.

This unraveling cannot be avoided. We can, however, turn a potentially terminal crisis into an epic opportunity to bring forth a new era of Earth Community grounded in the life-affirming cultural values shared by most all the world’s people and eloquently articulated in the Earth Charter.

The Great Turning is an essential resource for those who understand the need for fundamental change. It cuts through the complexity of our time to illuminate a simple, but elegant truth. We humans live by stories. We are held captive to the ways of Empire by a cultural trance of our own creation—indeed, one need look no further than our popular culture and the way it is magnified in TV, movies, and other mass media to see how this paradigm is reflected back upon us all everyday.

Changing our future begins with changing our stories in a way that includes our capacities for compassion, cooperation, responsible self-direction, and self-organizing partnership. This is a work already underway, and to succeed, it ultimately will call for the participation of every person on the planet. In The Great Turning, David Korten points the way to the inspiring outcome within our reach.