The Authors

The Authors

I, Walter, was staff correspondent of The Guardian in India, Africa, Middle East and Europe.

I, Dorothy, write fiction and teach creative writing. I’m author of Simple Stories About Women (Iron Press 1998) We are also joint authors of Breaking Through - Theory and Practice of Holistic Living.(Green Books 1988).

E-mail Walter and Dorothy Schwarz: waldot@compuserve.com

We were young adults in the Sixties, when the poet Philip Larkin wrote:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me)
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

We rejoiced that progress was inevitable - not only in sexual liberty but also personal freedom, prosperity, technology, and fun. We believed unquestioningly in economic development, expressed in roads, factories and large dams, certain that these artefacts meant material benefits for everyone. We spent much of the sixties in West Africa, much of the seventies in India and much of the eighties in France. Walter was a journalist and Dorothy had babies.

Returning to Africa in the eighties and to India in the nineties, we found the expanding middle classes had immured themselves in oases of prosperity, surrounded by deserts of poverty. In one of the newly popular motels on the Delhi to Agra road, the surrounding lawns, harshly emerald, are watered by sprinklers while outside the gates the eroded hills can no longer support the poverty-stricken, water-starved villagers. Such a waste of water in a drought-prone area should be a criminal offence. It is not. ‘Development’ now seems little more than a window dressing for economic colonialism.

As we set out to discover people who have broken out of the straitjacket of the consumerist life, we ourselves have made no radical lifestyle changes. We are ninety percent vegetarian: we have doubled our vegetable growing area using a permaculture-style mulch and we do not replace household equipment and furniture as long as they serve - but that’s as far as we go.

Naturally in this ambiguous situation, our critics are many. Our youngest child, Zachary, complained: ‘You say so many different things but you actually do less than the average person because you go around so much in airplanes. To help the environment be Green on a scale of ten you lot would be about ONE. Mum says all the time, oh, if only people could be vegetarian, but then she still eats bacon. She says, oh God, why buy new clothes when you can make do, but her cupboard’s full of shoes. I think that’s bad. You should either shut up or put up.’

We sympathise with Zac’s view. He is young. There is no middle way for him. We, older, do our best in our native surroundings. To live lightly in its purest form would mean a return to a hunter-gatherer society - a silly proposition. In between, there are infinite choices.

 

What they said about the book:

John Vidal, environment editor of The Guardian:

"This genuinely inspiring global report is a chronicle of hope, a record of practical survival and individual and community improvement, and proof not only that there are real options open to people, but that a significant global counter-movement is developing to challenge the orthodoxy of globalisation."

Jonathon Porritt, environmental author and campaigner:

"Walter and Dorothy bring us an inspiring slice of the future with insight and compassion."

Professor Norman Myers, environmental researcher and author:

"A splendid road map towards the post-consumer society.... Warmly recommended to all who would prefer to swap some quantity of livelihood for more quality of life."

George Monbiot, writer and environmental campaigner:

"... an engrossing journey through a world that lives all around us, yet which we seldom see."

David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World (Kumarian Press 1995):

"Walter and Dorothy bring us an inspiring collection of stories of the modern subversives and their methods".

Tricia Allen, Local Campaigner at friends of the Earth in London (in Earth Matters Magazine):

"This delightful book’s engaging style allows to meet and listen to people testing out alternatives without feeling preached at. The authors unashamedly offer their subjective opinions, but leave space for the reader to reach his or her own conclusions".

Judy Jones in Resurgence:

" What makes the book a real page-turner, rather than one you would just dip into for reference, is the honesty of the observation of its subjects. When they describe their encounters with the disparate band of 'light-living' families, individuals and communities, the Schwarzes tell it like it is, not simply as it was intended, and don't always make friends in the process.".

 
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