"We all know there's no one right way to build a bicycle, no one right way to design an automobile, no one right way to construct a pair of shoes, but we're convinced there must be only one right way for people to live - and the one we have is it, no matter what. Even if we hate it, we must cling to it. Even if it drags us to the brink of extinction, we must not let it go."--BOOK JACKET.

"Many other peoples have built civilizations - and then walked away from them. Quinn examines the Maya, the Olmec, the people of Teotihuacan, and others, who did just that. But they all walked away moving backward - to an earlier lifestyle. Quinn's goal in this book is to show how we can walk away moving forward, to a new lifestyle, one which encourages diversity instead of suppressing it. Not a "New World Order," but rather a New Personal Order.

Not legislative change at the governmental level, but rather incremental change at the human level."--BOOK JACKET. "This is a guidebook for people who want to assert control over their destiny and recover the freedom to live at a scale and in a style of their own choosing - and starting now, today, not in some distant utopian future."--BOOK JACKET.