The much-revered handbook for living a socially responsible life and working to make the world better—in a new revised and updated edition

Paul Rogat Loeb draws from his lifelong commitment to working for peace, justice and environmental causes, and here updates his landmark toolkit for everyone seeking a meaningful personal engagement with pressing societal issues. Filled with inspiring and instructive personal stories and brimming with the gentle wisdom only years of participating in social change can bestow, the book seamlessly weaves inspiring examples of unexpected everyday heroes, ordinary people who have achieved successful activism and made a difference in their communities, with lessons each one of us can benefit from in our daily strivings to make the world better.

We meet 100-year-old Hazel Wood, for example, the grandmother of the environmental movement, who championed neighborhood, day care, economic inequity and pollution issues. And we follow the successes of a woman from Texas who stood up to city government to get her impoverished neighborhood its fair share of public funding. And the California man drug addict immersed in a life of crime, who changed his life first, then opened a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center to help ex-cons get their lives straight.

An energizing, uplifting new introduction, new profiles of community activists, updated incisive political discussion, and information on emerging social technologies round out this remarkably transformative new edition.

As Bill McKibben, a member of PBC’s editorial advisory board states, “Soul of a Citizen has been a powerful inspiration to citizens acting for environmental sanity, showing how they can take committed stands, even if they don’t know every last answer. The new edition is even more inspirational.” And Jonathan Kozol raves, “I stayed up half the night reading Soul of a Citizen, finding it a beautiful and morally transcendent work. Paul Loeb is a personal hero of mine who gives decency and generosity a political character, in the humblest of ways. The new edition is magnificent.”

Paul Loeb writes about citizen responsibility and empowerment--asking what makes some people choose social commitment while others abstain. He is the author of five books, including Hope in Hard Times and Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time. His writing has also appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and Mother Jones.