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The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis Hardcover – December 31, 2009

by Jeremy Rifkin (Author)

60 customer reviews

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"One of the leading big-picture thinkers of our day" (Utne Reader) delivers his boldest work in this erudite, tough-minded, and far-reaching manifesto.

Never has the world seemed so completely united-in the form of communication, commerce, and culture-and so savagely torn apart-in the form of war, financial meltdown, global warming, and even the migration of diseases.

No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world, the human race seems to continually come up short, unable to muster the collective mental resources to truly "think globally and act locally." In his most ambitious book to date, bestselling social critic Jeremy Rifkin shows that this disconnect between our vision for the world and our ability to realize that vision lies in the current state of human consciousness. The very way our brains are structured disposes us to a way of feeling, thinking, and acting in the world that is no longer entirely relevant to the new environments we have created for ourselves.

The human-made environment is rapidly morphing into a global space, yet our existing modes of consciousness are structured for earlier eras of history, which are just as quickly fading away. Humanity, Rifkin argues, finds itself on the cusp of its greatest experiment to date: refashioning human consciousness so that human beings can mutually live and flourish in the new globalizing society.

In essence, this shift in consciousness is based upon reaching out to others. But to resist this change in human relations and modes of thinking, Rifkin contends, would spell ineptness and disaster in facing the new challenges around us. As the forces of globalization accelerate, deepen, and become ever more complex, the older faith-based and rational forms of consciousness are likely to become stressed, and even dangerous, as they attempt to navigate a world increasingly beyond their reach and control. Indeed, the emergence of this empathetic consciousness has implications for the future that will likely be as profound and far-reaching as when Enlightenment philosophers upended faith-based consciousness with the canon of reason.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For author and social thinker Rifkin (The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy), an E.U. advisor and senior lecturer at Wharton's Executive Education Program, the central paradox of human existence is, and has always been, the conflict between empathy and entropy: while globalization brings together diverse people, the very good-a rise in "empathic awareness"-is counterbalanced by the very bad-"dramatic deterioration of the health of the planet," by way of the technology that drives progress. Though wordy, Rifkin provides a thorough, lucid overview of mankind's history along the "empathy/entropy" spectrum: Spencer's mischaracterization of "nature red in tooth and claw," replaced by a more sensitive understanding of the biological and sociological evolution; the progression of socio-economic communities-civilizations-from the Neolithic to the "Modern Market Economy"; the current "Age of Empathy," in which the dominance of one language (English), "backyard" energies (wind, solar, etc.), the biosphere education in classrooms, and other developments, shine the way forward. Despite windiness and occasional hyperbole, this is the kind of reading fans of Jared Diamond and Richard Dawkins can sink their teeth into, with a contagious sense of urgency over whether we can "reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Jeremy Rifkin is the bestselling author of The European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End of Work. A fellow at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program, he is president of The Foundation on Economic Trends in Bethesda, MD.

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Product details

Hardcover: 688 pages
Publisher: TarcherPerigee; First Edition edition (December 31, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1585427659
ISBN-13: 978-1585427659
Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 2.1 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 60 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #303 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Political Economy
- #468 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Consciousness & Thought
- #592 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Economic Conditions

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June 11, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Excellent and thorough (as expected). Rifkin goes into immense detail on both his ideas and vision for the future (which I do agree with in many ways). Adding even more value to the text is that Rifkin cites all of the work that he provides as evidence...each of which is a worthwhile rabbit's whole to plunge down.

Love at first read.

July 22, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Oh this book. This book has put together so many ideas and thoughts that I've had and then opened up a thousand more questions. I got the e-book version which is nice, but I signed out a copy from the library and having it in my hands was perfection. I will buy the hardcover; I have to.

One person found this helpful

A Sweeping View which widens and deepens the imagination

September 23, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I have been reading Rifkin's books with great interest since 1985, when I met him in Declaration of a Heretic. Reviewers said he committed the ultimate heresy therein by questioning the fundamental assumptions of contemporary Western civilization, namely by saying `No' to the scientific world view and the Age of Progress. Even in that book he was using the word `empathy' to suggest that we replace the adage of knowledge as power with knowledge as empathy and that we could reach security through participation rather than control. In 1989 I read his Time Wars, in which he outlines the history of how people have viewed time, noting that our conception of time must change in order for civilization to change. He notes that speed for speed's sake to save time has actually left little time for living. I read Biosphere Politics in 1992 when I was actively engaged in the bioregional movement. Appropriately, that book probes the developing consciousness of the planet as living Earth and of human responsibility for its life.

The Empathic Civilization speaks to our despair when we confront the horrific effects of global warming, financial meltdown, and war. Rifkin says that our customary feeling, thinking, and acting are no longer relevant to the world we have created and that humanity is on the cusp of its greatest experiment: to refashion our consciousness in order to live and flourish in the new globalizing society. The way Rifkin tells our human story (a 600-page telling, backed up by new research), empathy is more basic to our essence than materialistic self-serving and is the quality we most need to survive and flourish in the 21st century. For an entertaining quick summary of this book, see the RSA Animate version at: [...]

"Empathy," explains Rifkin, unlike sympathy, "conjures up active engagement -- the willingness of an observer to become part of another's experience, to share the feeling of that experience." Empathy involves sharing in another's joy as well as suffering. Rifkin looks at new scientific discoveries that show humans are "a fundamentally empathic species" rather than naturally aggressive, acquisitive, and self-involved. Then he charts the development of human empathy, "from the rise of the great theological civilizations to the ideological age that dominated the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the psychological era that characterized much of the twentieth century," and the emerging trends of the 21st century. Finally, Rifkin focuses on "the Third Industrial Revolution: Distributed Capitalism," which he sees taking place in the Age of Empathy - if, that is, we win the "race against time" and navigate the shift. He explains that every great leap forward in civilization has combined a communications revolution with an energy revolution. We are going through a communications revolution like no other in human history.

Rifkin is a thinker of sweeping-view whose research across many academic disciplines is amazing. Though you may not agree with all his conclusions, your imagination will be deepened and widened.

4 people found this helpful

Tough Read but Worth It

May 13, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

If you care about the future of both humanity and our planet - you NEED to read this book. For some, that will be a challenging proposition; but, I assure you, it will prove more than worth the time and effort. We simply NEED to become more aware of the messages here as well as those that are all around us.

One person found this helpful

Good ideas; redundant writing

September 23, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book has some good ideas, useful information, and broad scope, but the middle chapters are unnecessarily redundant, and it reads a bit too much as a polemic (as opposed to analysis). The final chapter, which I read first, is a bit naive. Still, I wouldn't have missed the book, because it provides a useful structure for assessing future information and a context for thinking about where we are going as a species and a society.

Rifkin needs a good editor.

Unfortunately, the book appears to have been written just a bit before the tea party movement, and, thus, may be a bit more sanguine than it would have been had the author confronted the impact of that movement on the trend toward an "empathic civiization."

4 people found this helpful

February 6, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

it arrived in good condition

January 26, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Reading for my thesis. Love it.

Amazon Customer

March 6, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Very detailed and thought provoking. I needed a thesaurus by my side while reading it

Most recent customer reviews

Amazon Customer

... damaged effecting book cover a little but all road good read

Delivery box came Slighty damaged effecting book cover a little but all road good read

Published 1 year ago

Amazon Customer

Absolute masterwork by one of the most prolific bug thinkers of our lifetime

Published on February 27, 2016

Rev David Froemming

Great vision, though a bit over optimistic. His later works consider resistance to change.

Published on January 29, 2016

One of the most comprehensive and articulate books I've ever read regarding the human condition

Couldn't recommend more strongly to anyone willing to grapple with its ideas. I'm going to have to recommend this to my former university professors

Published on January 5, 2016

Really good read

Published on December 12, 2015

Alfonso Mendoza

Felt really motivated to do something when reading.

Although i think the length of the book can be shorter, I really liked the insights on empathy and building our society around it.Read more

Published on November 20, 2015

Love this concept! Very interesting book! Very motivating!

Published on September 14, 2015

Proving the realism of empathy in court

Rifkin presents the story of humanity in terms of the evolution of empathy. He compiles mountains of evidence that empathy has always been the driving force of social development.Read more

Published on September 5, 2015

Sheryl Worthington Turgeon

Would like to read the Cliff Notes...

Published on August 22, 2015

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