In nine short chapters of this book, which won the 2008 Nautilus Small Press Gold Award and the 2008 Nautilus Silver Award in Social Change/Activism, Lappé leaves readers feeling liberated and courageous. She flouts conventional right-versus-left divisions and affirms readers' basic sanity—their intuitive knowledge that it is possible to stop grasping at straws and grasp the real roots of today's crises, from hunger and poverty to climate change and terrorism. Because we are creatures of the mind, says Lappé, it is the power of "frame"—our core assumptions about how the world works—that determines outcomes. She pinpoints the dominant failing frame now driving out planet toward disaster.

By interweaving fresh insights, startling facts, and stirring vignettes of ordinary people pursuing creative solutions to our most pressing global problems, Lappé uncovers a new, empowering "frame" through which real solutions are emerging worldwide. She writes: "My book's intent is to enable us to see what is "happening all around us but is still invisible to most of us." It is about people in all walks of life who are penetrating the spiral of despair and reversing it with new ideas, ingenious innovation—and courage."