This work belongs to that subterranean tradition of organic and decentralized economics His major spokesman include Tolstoy Gandhi and others

I concur with many of this thoughts. But the book quickly devolves in opinion and anecdote. I expected more. ( )

I read this book once and it is quite amazing. ( )

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Having recently read some extremely positivist neuroscience by the likes of Daniel Dennett and others, it was refreshing to come across a book that takes subjectivity seriously as well as the possibility of the human ability to attain a sense of a more basic level of reality beyond that of mere necessity.

As to the specifics, I found the first few chapters engaging and thought provoking. However, Schumacher lost me in his discussions of the second and fourth fields of knowledge. In the second field, he went from a good discussion of attaining insight into others to an embarrassing discussion of debunked popular psychics like Edgar Cayce and Jakob Lorber as well as Saint Francis' supposed ability to communicate with animals which he took as literally true. These he used as examples of the highest levels of insight into others. In the fourth field of knowledge, he entered into a fundamentally mistaken analysis of the descriptive sciences and an easily misunderstood criticism of what he calls Evolutionism. In the end, though, the book returned to an even keel with a good discussion of what Schumacher calls convergent and divergent problems.

In sum, a useful, thought provoking read with some embarrassing lapses. As a bonus though, I followed Schumacher's recommendation and picked up Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Miracle of Mindfulness" which is absolutely wonderful. ( )

The book that virtually started everything for me. Read in 1983, year of undergrad graduation, and things have never been the same since. I had resistance to even looking at the title. ( )