Human Scale

by Kirkpatrick Sale

Book Overview

Size matters. And "progress," as it translates into sprawl, congestion, resource depletion, overpopulation, the decline of communities and the rise of corporate rule, is quite literally killing us. In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399506217
• ISBN13: 9780399506215
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 558 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

a defense of anarchism in all human endeavors

This would be on the list of the 100 books that influenced me the most.What it is is a wideranging defense of anarchism, not just in the political sphere but in all human endeavors.The insight i've carried with me for the 20+ years since i read it is that quantity doesn't scale, there is a point where a teaspoon of water increasing to a cup is useful and necessary, but as it increases to a swimming pool and eventually to the Pacific ocean, something in the quality changes. It becomes not a life essential glass of water, but a life threatening monster. Changes in quantity are qualitative. Seems like such a simple idea, but it isn't, as the book shows.An easy but complete read, it talks about how many people you can remember by name, or by shape at a distance. To how technology distorts and maims people and our minds. I am sure that each chapter, and each insight has a number of books now written on the topic, but this is AFAIK the best one volume defense of this cluster of insights about how size really matters.

A Needed Gospel: Get this book back in print!

Since the Small/Beautiful/Sensual societies we create in the post-corporate world should directly reflect the democratic will of each of our families, communities and bioregions, there is little point in pushing one-size-fits-all paradigms. You don't need a doctor to tell you how to enjoy your health after the plague is past. As long as we keep the "pathological scale" problem in mind and simply refuse existence to vast hierarchic entities, a diversity of congenial new cultures is thinkable, desirable, probably inevitable. But we have learned a lot about ourselves as a species in the last few thousand years, and that history must be consulted when building our brave new worlds. Kirkpatrick Sale offers an invaluable review of that history in "Human Scale" and clearly outlines what has worked and what hasn't since the days of ancient Greece. His primary conclusion is predictable - ..., but the historical insights he offers into our unsung successes both amaze and encourage. Read this book! You will feel a lot better about both the past and the future.

A life-changing book

I've been a voracious reader ever since I learned to read almost 50 years ago, so that adds up to at least several thousand books. Out of all of those, there were perhaps half a dozen which permanently changed my life, and this is one of them. (If you really care to know what the others were, then e-mail me and I'll tell you, LOL.) Sale begins with the simplest possible premise: that all human efforts should be measured and evaluated in terms of how they increase human happiness, comfort and convenience. That idea seems too obvious to require discussion, and yet Sale demonstrates that in almost every aspect of our culture, we have ignored that principle. He then describes what would have to be done in order to bring our homes, furniture, neighborhoods, etc. into conformance with the greatest comfort and happiness for human beings. It's one of the most fascinatingly thoughtful books I have ever read, and I hope it comes back into print soon.

If we paid attention, this book could revolutionize schools.

This book should have tremendous impact on the way Americans view growth-for-growth's-sake. The chapter titled Education: Big School, Small School is worth the price of the book and should be read by every educator in this country. If we took it seriously we would dramatically change the way we approach schooling.

Life-changing book

This book changed my life. I had always had a vague feeling that a city, a house, a chair could be too large, too small or just right, but I did not realize anyone had carefully quantified just what is the best size for these things until I read this book. It is because of this book that I moved to a town of 35,000 people, and have been delighted with that choice for the last 10 years