Intern Reading List
Books that inform our approach to community
Taking Lesson from History
Models of Sustainable Community
These books provide insights into about how three very different communities achieved a high degree of sustainability.
Without Sin: the life and Death of the Oneida Community
by Spencer Claw
Forgotten Founders: How the American Indian Helped Shape Democracy
by Bruce E. Johansen
Work and Worship Among the Shakers
by Faith Andrews
Technology and Community
“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it… And then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”
-Nancy Jack Todd, author of A Safe and Sustainable World
These books go into detail about some of the key systems we’re working on. Including passive-solar construction, integrated aquaponic greenhouses (sometimes refered to as “arks”), and the rediscovery of organic, regenerating village economies.
They are also informative of how groups that focus on building nifty technology often fail because of a lack of investment in the people who make up the community. That’s why, in a world where community is constrainted to serve technology, our focus is on creating technology that serves community.
Solviva: How to grow $500,000 on one acre, and Peace on Earth
by Anna Edey
Quotes
Relevance Notes, by Walt
A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise Of Ecological Design
by Nancy Jack Todd
Quotes
Relevance notes, by Walt
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Quotes
Relevance notes, by Walt
Relevance notes, by Emily
Relevance notes, by Jen
Relevance notes, by Opalyn
Visions of Sustainability
Inspiration in works of fiction
“I like the fact that sci-fi is boldly willing to accept that things change. Sci-fi is the genre that considers that children will learn from the mistakes of their parents.”
– David Brin
These books describe various visions of how a sustainable society could be created. These and others have served as the source for some of the concepts that have informed Windward’s effort to build resilient systems in ways both technical and social.
The caveat given at the top of this page bears repeating here in that many of the intellectually provacative quotes listed in this section are from fictional works, and may or may not represent either the core beliefs of the author or the principles guiding Windward’s evolution as an organization.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
by Robert Heinlein
Looking Backward
by Edward Bellamy
Quotes
Read Looking Backwards online!
Herland
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Quotes
It’s Always Sunny in Herland A Book Review by Ruben
Read Herland Online!