The Regeneration Handbook offers an abundance of insights, stories, tools, practices, and resources for experienced and aspiring changemakers to step into their full power at this time of unprecedented global crisis.
By introducing readers to a different kind of activism, based on universal patterns of Transformation, Expansion, Wholeness, and Balance, it points the way to a truly just and regenerative future.
Drawing on author Don Hall’s experience as a leader in the international Transition Towns Movement – as well as the work of dozens of regenerative thinkers and doers across many fields, including ecology, psychology, sociology, organizational development, and systems thinking – this book will help you:
Better understand our current environmental, economic, and social polycrisis
Develop a holistic and inspiring vision for the future
Cultivate the confidence to lead and strengthen inner resilience
Work effectively in collaborative groups and organizations
Reach beyond the choir to engage people from all walks of life
Design and implement practical projects that foster sustainability and justice
While none of us can change the world alone, we all have an important part to play in the Great Transition. By starting wherever we are and leaning into this historic challenge, we’ll discover our deepest purpose, realize our highest potential, and learn how to harness the power of regeneration to radically transform our lives, our communities, and our world.
Chapter Summaries
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1. Introduction
Making the case for why we all have an important role to play in helping to bring about spiritual, cultural, and ecological regeneration in these times of Great Transition.
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2. Patterns of Evolution
An overview of the four “meta-patterns” of evolutionary change: Transformation, Expansion, Wholeness, and Balance.
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3. My Evolutionary Journey
The author’s personal story as an example of how these regenerative patterns can naturally unfold in and through one human life.
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4. The Transition Story
How the international Transition Towns Movement rapidly spread from its humble beginnings in the UK in 2005 and 2006 to more than 1,000 communities worldwide.
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5. The Five Stages of Transition
A new theory of change for Transition and other related movements, based on a forgotten framework from The Transition Companion.
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6. Our Global Context
How humanity’s relentless pursuit of infinite exponential growth has created an environmental, economic, and social polycrisis that now threatens our very survival.
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7. The Power of Vision
Exploring a wide range of potential scenarios, considering the importance of a just transition, and developing our own holistic and inspiring visions for the future.
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8. Inner Transition
Tools and resources for shifting paradigms, discovering our deepest purpose, practicing self-transformation, and cultivating a sense of ongoing balance in our work.
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9. Healthy Groups
How to help get new groups off on the right foot, transform conflict into understanding, practice effective collaboration, and develop a more robust and impactful organization.
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10. Community Engagement
Diffusion of Innovations Theory shows how groups can engage more and more people over time, achieving critical mass and creating a tipping point.
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11. Practical Projects
Principles for designing successful regenerative projects, strategies for scaling them up, and inspiring examples of both early-stage projects and more advanced initiatives.
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12. Part of a Movement
The many benefits of being part of a movement, the current state of the Transition Movement, and mapping the wider “movement of movements.”
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13. Conclusion
Reflecting on why all of this really matters, surveying resources for further study, contemplating next steps, and designing your own personal action plan.
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Endorsements
"Many things about our future are murky - but one thing is clear, and that is that a rapidly changing planet is going to demand some rapid changes from all of us, in our communities and in our own selves. This book is a darned good place to start thinking through those transitions." — Bill McKibben, Author of The End of Nature
“Born from his years of experience in numerous and different roles, synthesized from his clarity of where we are, and offered from a compassionate and wise heart, Don has written a true field guide for stepping forward to serve this time. Let us use this very practical guide and see what’s possible, embodying Vaclev Havel’s definition of hope: ‘Not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.’” — Dr. Margaret Wheatley, Author of Restoring Sanity and Leadership and the New Science
“If you want to build a future that extends beyond the polycrisis currently gripping humanity, then ‘regeneration’ should be your key search word. And your search lands here. This is the book to inform your personal and communitarian efforts as humans cease being fossil fools and transition into wise Earth stewards.” — Richard Heinberg, Author of Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival and Senior Fellow at Post Carbon Institute
“If you’re feeling hopeless about our future, you’ve found the right antidote! With The Regeneration Handbook, Don Hall has done a brilliant job summing up the past couple decades of thinking on regenerative social change and written a clear, inspiring and entertaining call to action.” — Adam Brock, Organizational Ecologist at Regenerate Change and Author of Change Here Now: Permaculture Solutions for Personal and Community Transformation
“This is a handbook for millions of us who have not given up on restoring health, sanity, vitality and a higher moral purpose to our world - even with the dangerous headwinds. It is a glossary of relevant ideas for regeneration activists. It is a compendium of projects that have worked. Don provides an analysis of where the movements for regeneration are, and what next steps can be. His is the kind of leader we need.” — Vicki Robin, Author of Your Money or Your Life and Blessing the Hands that Feed Us and Host of What Could Possibly Go Right?
“Weaving together personal transformation, community organizing and new economic thinking, this handbook is chock full of insights from Don Hall's lifetime commitment to the great work of our time - healing the collateral damage of economic growth and globalization.” — Woody Tasch, Founder of the Slow Money Institute and beetcoin.org
“The environmental, social, and economic polycrisis is ending the world as we know it. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In The Regeneration Handbook, Don Hall illustrates how the great transition could be a bane, or if we look at as a unique opportunity for transformation, it could be a boon. Whether it is one or the other is up to all of us. Shared challenges demand shared solutions!” — Tom Llewellyn, Executive Director of Shareable
"If there is one book that at least a billion of us must read at this crossroads of human civilization, it's Don Hall's The Regeneration Handbook. It's powerful. It's lyrical. Dip into it wherever you like. Almost every paragraph is potent and memorable. It's deeply motivating in a way that you may not be able to resist. Don debunks the ideas that it's 'too late,' that humanity is irredeemably lazy or selfish, or indeed that we are the doomed pinnacle of human evolution. A kinder, wiser, more humble and much more meaningful civilization awaits - for all of us who decide to go there. Your choice." — Dr. Phoebe Barnard, Scientist, Professor, and Co-Founder of the Global Restoration Collaborative
"With keen analysis and deep feeling, The Regeneration Handbook is an important reflection on our predicament as a species, and both the challenges and opportunities our movements face in transforming global human society. If we are to have any hope, it requires being real about what we're dealing with. Don Hall has brought us both." — Sky Blue, former Executive Director and Board Member for the Foundation for Intentional Community
"The Regeneration Handbook distills authenticity. It explores with care and detail the transition principles and the movement, including the personal author's process, to inspire you to act. An essential book in this time of uncertainty and needed regeneration, that will surely support you through your own evolutionary journey." — Juan del Río, Co-Founder of Transition Spain and Co-Director of Alter Nativas: Building Possible Futures