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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late (Paperback)

by Thom Hartmann (Author), Neale Donald Walsch (Afterword), Joseph Chilton Pearce (Foreword) "It all starts with sunlight..." (more)
Key Phrases: current sunlight, ancient sunlight, United States, Younger Culture, Older Culture (more...)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (54 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review
"One of the most important books you will ever read in your life."
-- Neale Donald Walsch, author of "Conversations with God
"The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight shines like a beacon in the darkness, an education about reality, a needed wake-up call, and a guidebook through the swamps of denial and ignorance into a brighter, sustainable future."
-- Dan Millman, author of "Way of the Peaceful Warrior and "Everyday Enlightenment
"Thom Hartmann writes one of the most rousing, raging, and right-thinking works of our time."
-- Jean Houston, author of "Jump Time and "A Mythic Life
"Thom Hartmann is one of those people who puts it all together for us, explaining not only what has seriously gone wrong in the world but, even more important, all that can still go right. He is an awakener of the highest order."
-- Marianne Williamson, author of" Healing of America

Product Description
While everything appears to be collapsing around us -- ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, the end of cheap oil, water shortages, global famine, wars -- we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children’s children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio’s web movie Global Warning, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture’s blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem. Thom Hartmann’s comprehensive book, originally published in 1998, has become one of the fundamental handbooks of the environmental activist movement. Now, with fresh, updated material and a focus on political activism and its effect on corporate behavior, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight helps us understand--and heal--our relationship to the world, to each other, and to our natural resources.

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Product Details

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Rev Upd Su edition (April 27, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400051576
ISBN-13: 978-1400051571
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (54 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,626 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

#8 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( W ) > Walsch, Neale Donald
#8 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Human Geography
#15 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Levels of Government > Federal Government

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
It all starts with sunlight. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
current sunlight, ancient sunlight

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Younger Culture, Older Culture, Native Americans, North America, South America, Great Conveyor Belt, New York, Science News, Middle East, Roman Empire, Supreme Court, Quarry Hill, World Bank, San Francisco, Alluvial Aquifer, Associated Press, Civil War, Epic of Gilgamesh, Great Mother, New England, North Atlantic, Pol Pot, Republican Party, Burkina Faso

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 76 books:

The Heart of the Hunter: Customs and Myths of the African Bushman by Laurens van der Post on page 187, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution by Terence McKenna on page 137, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot on page 239, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind by Richard E. Leakey on page 52, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition by Bill McKibben on page 66, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann

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	3% buy Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights 4.5 out of 5 stars (56) $11.53
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Customer Reviews

54 Reviews

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3 star:		(1)
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4.4 out of 5 stars (54 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive exploration of historical human culture and its future., July 21, 2005

By	Nicholas Soucy (Lansing, Mi United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a nearly flawless achievement of creative nonfiction. Hartmann addresses some of the most complex and important issues of human and worldly culture with crisp, enjoyable language.

Thom Hartmann deserves to be recognized as a philosopher because of his clarity of thought and the quality of his observations and arguments.

The various topics are diverse but interrelated. It's difficult to perfectly summarize the contents of thie book, but Hartmann addresses each aspect of life with a sad wisdom and a hopeful optimism.

He addresses anthropocentrism: the tendency humans have to view the rest of the world as valuable only if is can be used or appreciated by people. This type of thinking has been instrumental in our gradual and steady distance from nature in many ways. Hartmann explains why distance from nature is detrimental to the health of the planet, to our bodies and our psychological well-being.

Specifically, Hartmann opens up a relatively unnoticed world of history, in the tradition of Howard Zinn, Derrick Jensen (A Language Older Than Words) and Daniel Quinn (Ishmael). His candor is needed, and his analysis of history and contemporary culture is at once astonishing, necessary and intriguing. Chapter after chapter his words, ideas and citations challenge you to think, to wonder and reconsider human behavior and lies.

He has borrowed some ideas from the aforementioned authors and put them to good use. He is a better writer than Daniel Quinn, who delivers a choppy, amateurish prose in spite of his good intentions. Hartman better converys his ideas, so if you're one of the millions of fans of Ishmael, I guarantee you'll want to buy or rent this book.

The title phrase refers to the fact that the earth's energy and its organisms' lifeforces are fueled by sunlight in some form or another(fossil fuels being ancient sunlight), but this treatise on the history of human culture is infinitely more than a polemic against the oil industry.

It's an exploration of the mistakes that have been made (slavery, deforestation, human and animal exploitation, corruption) and it's a cogent and admirable plea to change the way our political and social leaders govern the world. It's about the cultural stories that pervade our lives, the religions, the assumptions that people should have dominion over the earth's resources and even over other humans.

Covered are such issues as global warming, famine,war, misogyny, art, religiosity, aboriginal lifestyles, agriculture, social opiates (narcotics, alcohol, television, "news", antidepressants, etc).

What truly impressed me about this book was Hartmann's ability to convey his opinions without seeming arrogant or frantic, despite that he is well-educated and obviously concerned. He reminds us how powerful language can be, how it relates to collective memory of historical events and how important it can be to change, even if that evolution is painful or challenging.

I consider this to be an important history text, although his solutions to the problems seem lackluster. What I mean by this is that he correctly identifies human thought (and subsequently human culture) as the culprit. In order to cease the desire for exploitation of other people and of land, it's necessary to do some serious revision in the way we view our relationship with the earth.

So, no, you won't find a checklist of 50 quick things you can do to improve the world; it isn't that simple. Quite frankly, that's what is frustrating about this book and Daniel Quinn's books-- they identify problems clearly, but they know that the solutions are very very difficult and involved.

Read this book with an open mind, and I suspect it will motivate you to change the way you view some aspects of contemporary Western civilization.

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122 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books of our time, May 13, 2004

By	Marcus Macauley - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Thom Hartmann's "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" is extremely important and cogent, and needs to be read and absorbed by many to ensure the possibility of a future for the human race and all other life on Earth. Divided into three main parts, this book explains in detail where we are, how and why we got here, and what we can do for a brighter future. Very practical, well-researched, comprehensive. I am not aware of a better book on the issues, especially since it not only sets out the realities of our situation (dependence on dwindling oil and clean-water supplies, destruction of forests and plant/animal species, unsustainable population growth, frequent wars, third-world and first-world impoverishment, etc.), but also explains why, fundamentally, human civilization has gotten us into this mess (tracing the causes back thousands of years to the basis of civilization and comparing the recent city-state or nation-state lifestyle to that of the much older tribe), and what we can possibly do to change our course and save our children and their children and the planet they will inherit.

I would give a more detailed or articulate description, but I lent my copy out the day I finished reading it, and several people are already waiting in line to borrow it. If there is a book to buy multiple copies of and give away, this is the best one I have found. Do not let it sit on the bookshelf indefinitely - after you read it, pass it around, from one person to another, making sure it never stays the same place, unread, for long. If you must keep a copy for your own reference, at least buy a second one to pass around to your friends.

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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential impressive reading for mandatory change, September 28, 2004

By	Douglas C. Dutting (Amsterdam, NL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was shocked, entertained, surprised, touched and extremely moved by the contents of this well written eye-opening book. Opposed to other peak-oil subject books this book is not concentrating on the numbers and technical solutions but on our cultural roots and our pathological and illogical behavior as a result. The spiritual part of this book did not bother me at all despite the fact that I don't consider myself as a very spiritual person. I can fully understand his strong arguments to dig into our roots and that we must learn from the point we strayed to the path of superior feeling, materialism, short-term profits, etc... Hartmann delivers his point very well and I recommend this book to all people who think that we can work our way out of this mess we are in by wishfull thinking or technological inventions and to all people who see no way out of it at all (so this are about all people in the industrialized world). We only have to reinvent ourselves and this book shows us the way. Without a doubt one of the top five most important books I have ever read in my life if not the number one. I even think that this book should be read by all children in every school in Europe and America!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Good intent but poor organizaion makes for a painful read
The title and first chapter of the book are novel enough and caught my attention. But the remainder of the book is poorly written. Read more

Published 17 days ago by L. Byrne

5.0 out of 5 stars Though-provoking brilliance
This book is one of the most thought-provoking "must reads" I have ever read. Hartmann's book deserves every bit of five stars. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Wendy Broome

3.0 out of 5 stars Raises Awareness
I enjoyed most of this book. Much of the earth history is very fascinating, and there are many details about current environmental issues that are bound to raise awareness in... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Ronin

2.0 out of 5 stars psychotic- like 2 different books in one!
What a strange book this is. It starts off in full-paranoia mode, informing you how bad everything is, how we have raped the planet and how we are eventually all doomed. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Robert Norman

5.0 out of 5 stars A prescient look at what could be in our future . . .
Anyone who is concerned for the future of our planet should read this book. Thom explains many different concerns of today and extrapolates what may occur if we don't make... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Stephen Arthur Murphy

5.0 out of 5 stars Eyeopening
I had been loaned a copy of this book from our high school principal at the school where I teach Environmental Science. Read more

Published 2 months ago by K. Strehlow

5.0 out of 5 stars The most important book I have read
Quite simply, if I had to choose one book as the most important book I have ever read, this is it.

I purchased multiple copies to send to people I care about and who... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Bernard C. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
This is an important book for everyone to read. We need to be informed as to our 'out of control' consumption of earth's resources and learn how to live so that those who come... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Bob

5.0 out of 5 stars Grim reality and hope for change
A very grim picture is painted of the world today along with the causes of our current crisis. The final chapters give us the hope that with major changes in the way we live,and... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Margie Dee

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book - highly recommended
This book had a profound affect on me when I first read it almost five years ago. It is the book that made me realize the state of our environment and the devastating effects of... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Roberto Giannicola

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The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late

This is a: Non-Fiction Book, Book warning of Environmental Degradation

A true wakeup call for earthlings! This book does not paint a favorable picture of the future world. Specially I found the facts about the growth in population alarming. That is a key factor for all other damages we do to our enviroment. SomehowI ...

Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Author: Thom Hartmann; Creator: Joseph Chilton Pearce, Neale Donald Walsch; ...

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Created on Feb 03, 2007, last edited on Feb 03, 2007.