From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want

Written by Rob Hopkins

Narrated by Rob Hopkins

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There’s a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing of ecosystems and communities beyond, it seems, repair. The future—to say nothing of the present—looks grim.

But as Transition movement cofounder Rob Hopkins tells us, there is plenty of evidence that things can change, and cultures can change, rapidly, dramatically, and unexpectedly—for the better. He has seen it happen around the world and in his own town of Totnes, England, where the community is becoming its own housing developer, energy company, enterprise incubator, and local food network—with cascading benefits to the community that extend far beyond the projects themselves.

We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now.

Imagination is central to empathy, to creating better lives, to envisioning and then enacting a positive future. Yet imagination is also demonstrably in decline at precisely the moment when we need it most. In this passionate exploration, Hopkins asks why imagination is in decline, and what we must do to revive and reclaim it. Once we do, there is no end to what we might accomplish.

From What Is to What If is a call to action to reclaim and unleash our collective imagination, told through the stories of individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now, as we speak, and witnessing often rapid and dramatic change for the better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781603589079

Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins is a cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author of From What Is to What If?, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Companion. In 2012 he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events. An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an ambitious, community-led development project. He blogs at transtionnetwork.org and robhopkins.net, and you can find him on Twitter at @robintransition.

Reviews for From What Is to What If

[Vladimir Lugo · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

If I was to rate this book as a mean to spread the political propaganda of the extreme left and globalists, I would have given it five stars. Buy I don’t buy their message. This is 97% political promotion of the left an 3% if good content I could have gotten elsewhere. I am in for a more socially balanced society based on equal opportunities for all and better use of our environmental resources, but socialism of the XXI Century is very detrimental to both.

[Sedona Harper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is like a toolbox for the future. It holds within it the key to the future we all want to live in: the audacity to imagine it and then make it happen.

[Gardner Singleton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book clearly shows why imagination is underutilized, and so lacking in humanity collectively. Because it’s largely invisible, it really might be the missing ingredient to effective social change.

[Steven Enman-Beech · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A much needed infusion of positive speculation on the future, and identification of present steps being taken in that direction.

[Eleonora Philipp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A game changer. I felt I could breathe better and deeper throughout the narrative. The enthusiasm of the author is contagious, and for that I am forever grateful.

[Sandi Stannard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing listening to such creative and insightful stories and imaginings

[Sonja Norton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was inspiring and refreshing and I loved his candour.

[balu gaspar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful. Wonderful. Exciting. Captivating. Mind-shifting. Imaginative.
Woow. Best book of the year. Thank you.

[Rodolfo Garza · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful and amaizing book, what if all imagine a better World!