I believe that the larger environmental crisis that threatens us cannot be averted without profound changes in the predominant patterns of thinking and interacting within our institutions. The book Ishmael speaks to this deeper purpose. Recently, the historian Tom Berry asked, “By improving our organizations, are we simply making them better at destroying the earth or such questions cannot be ignored if one truly takes a systemic perspective, yet they are profoundly challenging because they cause us to inquire into deeply held cultural assumptions. But ultimately it is about expanding our worldview. From Events to InterrelationshipsĪ pragmatic view of systems thinking is that it is a body of tools and methodology for solving difficult, highly interdependent problems. And when we’re finished, you’ll have an entirely new perception of the world and of all that’s happened here.” As you read through Ishmael, you take part in that same journey, participating in a conversation between a man and a gorilla that may profoundly change the way you view the world. As we make our journey here, we’re going to be reexamining key pieces of that mosaic…. You know it well everyone in your culture knows it well….

Winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, awarded for fiction that offers creative and positive solutions to global problems, Ishmael is a powerful inquiry into the far-reaching implications of our cultural “story.”Īs Ishmael, the teacher, explains to his student, the narrator, “Mother Culture, whose voice has been in your ear since the day of your birth, has given you an explanation of how things came to be this way. Thus begins Ishmael, a compelling exploration of our shared assumptions about the world. Must have an earnest desire to save the world.

Ishmael david quinn