The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living Paperback – January 6, 2004

This is not really a review of this book. I would like to emphasize the merit Fritjof Capra has, as a mainstream scientist, to have unveiled the negative effects of genetically modified organisms, commonly called GMO. There are indeed interesting political and social hidden connections that Capra unveils in this book, while admittedly this subject is not the main tenet of the book. But for me personally it was revelatory which is why I decided to write this review only about this part of the book, leaving it to others to review it in its general focus.There are probably still people around who are fond of biotechnology, but I guess they just ignore the facts, and their knowledge is for the most part taken from the huge amount of propaganda material. Was it only for this enlightening information, the present book is worth its price as it daringly unveils the hidden facts and tells the truth! For I was one of those ignorant scholars, and in my case this weighs especially heavy against me, for I was trained as an international lawyer. But honestly, I never heard of the matter at university. It was through the Internet, through Wikipedia, that I first found information about it, some years ago.Now let us honestly ask: why do we need biotechnology? I guess certain people, corporations and their consorts need it for making huge amounts of money. But is it tolerable in a democracy that all suffer from the side effects of technologies that enrich a few? I learnt as a law student that such a kind of system is called an oligarchy, the reign of an elite. So I am seriously asking how we ever came to say that we are living in a democracy?Why do we need superpigs? It seems to me that they are the result of quantitative thinking, a primacy of quantity over quality, and this for the obvious reason of maximizing profits. This is a good example for the fact that we live in what has been called ‘the corporate society’, as the prototype of a society in which major corporations dictate the standards the government is going to follow and to enact as laws.As a trained lawyer, I can clearly see that we are facing currently a challenge to legally codify these new technologies—lest, as it were, they are going to codify us, entraining us in a turbulence of faits établis, and then the law will leap behind the actual developments. But the law should better accompany the research step by step so as to be updated with the explosive growth of these very heavily funded research disciplines.

As in Capra's other books, he provides a easy to understand and compelling look at living systems. In this book he takes a substantial leap forward in providing a broad based look at the evolution of the field and the impact on systems that we are now experiencing in our world. He also provides examples and references to successful examples of what we can do if we have the will to do so. What a powerful reference and one that I refer to regularly. If there was but one book to understand living systems and how the science has evolved and the impact on our world, please read this book. I can not recommend it more highly.

This is a highly intelligent book that applies deep philosophical insights and the tenets of complexity theory to the natural world, the social system, and the global economic system. The average layperson will find it mentally challenging, but enlightening as well. Particularly interesting to me was the discussion of epigenetics, which shows that evolution is not a simple function of genes mutating, but a complex and little-understood interaction between genes and the individual organism's environment and personal choices. I agree with the author's view that the unchecked greed of the global financial systems will surely lead to the utter destruction of our natural environment, and the Enron debaucle shows just how removed from reality the assignment of a company's "worth" is in a financial system that is hopelessly tied up in speculations. The changes required to fix these problems would be nothing less than a revolutionary overhaul of the world's economic and political policies, and I do not share the author's optimism that this could happen merely by the action of grassroots organizations, no matter how organized they have become. It will take a global collapse for this to happen, because historically humans only make changes of that magnitude in the face of a crisis...we are not focused on prevention, especially if it means those with money will lose it. This is the only reason I give 4 stars instead of 5...Capra is just too idealistic.

Very interesting and eye opener book. Recommended for positive people.

I read this book last year but do remember it was an awesome book to read for school and couldn't put it down easily. It was well presented material, lots of thought producers. Great read.

great

This is a valuable successor to Capra's earlier books, all of which seek to discuss matters of critical societal and ecological concern within the framework of scientific analysis and understanding.The book is in two parts. The first three chapters provide a brilliant summary of current thinking about the nature of life, mind and consciousness, and social reality as an emergent property of social organization seen as a complex adaptive system. It's very good but not easy to read. The remaining four chapters and epilogue can be read separately, although they rely on the theories in the first part. They form a wide-ranging critique of the current governance of organisations and of globalisation, with what amounts to a very detailed case study of how these structures produce the fundamentally dishonest and very dangerous commercial drive to GM foods. The final chapter offers broad guidelines for reshaping the current political and economic framework to bring economic incentives into harmony with the needs of society and the natural world.

The book provides an interesting evolutionary set of ideas for development of the humanity. The things I lacked in this book were practical implications for real life (though a note about ZERI in the end of the book provides a link for further investigation).