Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us

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The belief that every single one of us has both the potential and the desire to make the world better drives me every day, in everything I do. In Citizens, Jon shows how taking that belief as a starting point really could transform our world. This is a truly powerful book, in every sense of the word.' - Josh Babarinde, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur

Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director, Stanford University Cyber Policy Center, and author, Democracy.com Citizens is a powerful and intriguing contribution to the search for a genuinely sustainable future.' Jon is working with a set of ideas and tools that have the potential to change politics forever. In fact, they could change everything forever.' – Ian Kearns, Founder and Trustee, European Leadership Network Race is something we Americans still have not gotten right. Rankine’s small book of essays tells us the myriad ways we consistently misinterpret others’ motives, actions, language. She writes in second person: "you." It is agonizing to display our flayed skin to the salt of another day. You take to wearing sunglasses inside.We constantly hear and tell stories about who we are and our capacity to act. "Leaders" may tell us they can save us from all manner of problems, if we clear their path to power. Their story is that we should live as subjects - cogs in their machine. Or they tell us that our narrow self interest will make things work out via the magic of the marketplace. Their story is that we should live as consumers - liberated - yes, liberated to be cogs in another machine whose ownership we are all a bit vague about. Aren't these people dreadful to fill our heads with these stories of how our lives should be lived ! But wait, we tell ourselves the same stories, we tell them to each other. We are complicit. The stories are all pervasive. An easier book to read, because it uses a common writing style, is Christopher Hibbert's The Days of The French Revolution. Hibbert's book also provides more detail and a more comprehensible explanation of many facts, including a good description of the political storm surrounding the condemnation to the guillotine of the Revolutions leaders such as the Girondins, Desmoulins, Danton, St Just, and Rosbespierre. Hibbert's book, unlike Schama's, provides the reasons why Fouquier-Tinville was depicted (accurately) as a horrendous villan in Baroness Orczy's wonderful book and play, The Scharlet Pimpernel. Foley, Hugh (2015-10-13). " 'The Full Force of Your American Positioning' ". The Oxonian Review . Retrieved 2022-01-28. In many history texts on the revolution, it is almost possible to forget the fundamental upheaval in values and everyday lives as lived by the “common people’, changed from “subjects” to “citizens” but not with Schama. He is as interested the majority of the populations as he is in the revolutionary leaders and royalty. “... on the 1st of May, France was still a monarchy and the first in Europe’s. On the 9th of May ... France became a Republic.” (P.253)

This uniquely accessible guided journal ignites your inner curiosity and encourages self-discovery through thought-provoking questions about the cultures you have experienced - including your own - all while helping you become a more inquisitive, aware, observant, and engaged world citizen.The hoodie on the cover is empty. Claudia Rankine fills it with experiences. The experiences of Americans whose color has rendered them invisible to the many who are privileged enough to be blind. Citizens is so exciting and full of energy from the beginning that I wanted to read the whole thing immediately. A wonderful guide to how to be human in the 21st Century.' I've never been more convinced he has one of the few big ideas that's easily applied, fundamentally needed and genuinely offers a chance of change. Get on board for his new work, now. I am.'

Every great transformation requires a new story. A story that reveals new possibilities and points toward an optimistic alternative to the current situation. Citizens presents just such a story and if we respond to its challenge we may just manage to navigate our way out of the mess we have created for ourselves.' – Tim Brown, Chair of IDEO and author of Change By Design Because when our institutions treat people as creative, empowered creatures rather than consumers, everything changes.

In this engaging book, Jon lays out his full vision for how this mindset shift can transform not just business, but NGOs and governments too.' Rankine talks of tennis, of Serena and Venus, of foot faults and bad calls. I didn’t know these things: I don’t watch tennis. But foot faults and bad calls are happening on our streets, not within the civilized constraints of a rule-bound tennis game. These I do watch. The agony of the small daily slights crescendo, collapse, avalanche when the police become involved. No wonder people run away from police, our ‘guardians’. We have all learned something these many years and it is not that police are guardians. Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director, Stanford University Cyber Policy Center, and author, Democracy.com