Gathered over a period of twenty-seven years, the collected Annual E. F. Schumacher lecture pamphlets represent some of the finest thinking about creating a sustainable future. Each was delivered as a lone testament to one person’s vision, viewed together they offer an integrated picture of hope and possibility for people, land, and communities.
It was 1981 when Schumacher Center board member David Ehrenfeld first spoke to the revival of the fine art of pamphleteering. His goal was to raise awareness of a cultural revolution in the making. Twenty-seven years later, speakers at the Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures are still promoting that revolution—each year adding new voices, enhancing the dialogue, and challenging entrenched attitudes.
Efforts towards a sustainable world are enlivened by conversations among disciplines. The annual lecture series represents the diverse quality of the debate about ways to achieve that world. Lectures range from Richard Heinberg’s call for sweeping changes in our agricultural policy to Thomas Berry’s spiritual affirmation of every being’s rights.
The Schumacher Center’s believes the ideas contained in these lectures are too vital to languish unread, the examples too important to be ignored. To facilitate greater access, the lectures are edited and published in pamphlet form for sale at an affordable price and then posted at the Center’s website where they may be read for free. For a full list of pamphlets click here.
Consider sharing favorite lectures with family and friends this holiday season. You may want to send a set of pamphlets to your public library, your neighborhood school, your favorite organization for its bookshelf, or to a retirement community (as some members have done).
It is membership support that has built the Schumacher Center and its lecture program. It is you and your generous donations that have helped support a revolution in thinking on how we should conduct ourselves on the earth and with one another. The pamphlets are a tool for spreading these ideas. Please help us “pamphleteer.”