Protopia-The World As It Ought to Be

What if the future didn't have to be dystopian? In a time when every headline screams of crisis and many governments seek power instead of solutions, these stories dare to ask a radical question: What would it be like to create a better world? From a professor who plants the seeds of democratic renewal in high school classrooms to farmers who fight climate change through a neighborhood newsletter; from activists who create tools that make corporate power transparent to artists who transform a city's business environment with celebratory murals-here are fantasies, not of perfection, but of possibility. Meet Sandra Oaks, who transforms American democracy by remaking a generation, knowing she'll never live to see the full results. Follow Grace Larsen-Hever as she turns local weather predictions into a movement that helps farmers store carbon while protecting their crops. Watch Jason Novak discover that the solutions to his Ohio hometown's struggles might be found in the cooperative markets of Berlin. See Abby Farmer find the one person in Missouri who can stop the legislature in its tracks until it passes the climate law the state desperately needs. In Sauk Water, Illinois, residents use Abraham Lincoln's own consensus-building strategy to implement ranked choice voting and transform their local politics. In Ohio, a construction contractor helps homeless families build their own cooperative apartment building while learning that sweat equity creates stronger communities than charity ever could. In Hollywood, a band of actresses goes on strike against the toxic masculinity of the movie industry. These are stories about neighbors who choose cooperation over tribalism, and about citizens who reach out bravely to construct the world they want to live in. Neither utopian nor…