Our Ancient Futures
To design a thriving future, we must look to the past.
Helena Norberg-Hodge offers a path forward that stems from a transformative experience that she had in Ladakh, a remote region on the Tibetan plateau. Ladakh had been completely sealed off to the outside world for centuries—resulting in the happiest and healthiest people that Helena had ever met. But as this paradise opened up to the modern world, its social and ecological well-being quickly unraveled. How might we design ancient futures that reclaim the abundance and equality that our ancestors once enjoyed—what Helena calls the Economics of Happiness.
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“If we survive, we will return to this.”
About Our Guest
Linguist, author and filmmaker, Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the international non-profit organization, Local Futures, a pioneer of the new economy movement, and the convener of World Localization Day. She is the author of several books, including ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, an eye-opening tale of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”. Together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies. Her latest book is ‘Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness’. Other publications include ‘Bringing the Food Economy Home’ and ‘From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture’.
Educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States, Helena specialized in linguistics, including studies at the University of London and with Noam Chomsky at MIT. Her work, spanning almost half a century, has received the support of a wide range of international figures, including Jane Goodall, HH the Dalai Lama, HRH Prince Charles and Indira Gandhi. She has helped to initiate localization movements on every continent, particularly in South Korea and Japan, and co-founded both the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network. Helena is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (aka the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” Helena has lectured in seven languages and appeared in broadcast, print and online media worldwide, including MSNBC, The Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. She has written numerous articles and essays, and her work has been the subject of thousands of articles worldwide.
Learn more at helenanorberghodge.com
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About Local Futures
Local Futures is an international non-profit organization dedicated to renewing ecological and social well-being by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide. In other words: building an economics of happiness. The Local Futures team works from four continents, with main offices in the USA, Australia and the UK. Founder and director Helena Norberg-Hodge is a widely-respected analyst of the global economy’s impacts on communities, local economies, and personal identity around the world.
