The Transition Handbook

For the quintessential treatment of the transition movement one would look no farther than the concept originator, Rob Hopkins. His book, The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience provides a great overview and structure for what transition is about. More after the break.

Overview

Transition involves increasing the resilience of local community. Since our ability to cope in difficult situations is dependent on others, community resilience is an often overlooked but crucial aspect of our lives. This book takes the reader through three aspects of transition.

1. The Head - explaining the need to do something
2. The Heart - motivating a positive response to the need
3. The Hands - describing current methods of response

Overall the book presents potentially disturbing information about climate change and peak oil in a way that prompts action rather than reaction.

Meaningful Sections

The book is well laid out to present the a story of transition that is easy to get excited about. The first section did a great job explaining the reality of what the world currently faces. From a practical standpoint, the most meaningful chapter is the How to Start a Transition Initiative. This material builds upon all the chapters before to give steps and suggestions for actually doing something about the future. Most of this chapter is also included online at 12 ingredients and 7 buts for other reference. Further reading is suggested in the references section at the end of the book.

Recommendations

I highly recommend this book for anyone desiring to know more about transition; particularly if they are interested in participating. The book makes use of many insert boxes to describe tools for transition. These boxes give guidelines to meeting methods, group games, and other pieces of advice for running a transition. However, these boxes and the side-bar quotes of the book make it less suitable as an ebook. While all the text is there, sometimes the flow can be broken by introducing a quote in the middle of a section.
Overall this is a great book and will certainly be a great reference for any transition initiative.