It Takes More Than A Village

I have conducted (and continue to conduct) loads of research for Curing the Human Disease.

I've got pages of notes from interviews with smart people, internet bookmarks up the kazoo and tons of books with natty, highlighted pages. I am using the research to directly inform some of the concepts in the book but also as a kind of background hum of thinking that inderectly impacts it's themes.

I just finished reading Hillary Clinton's It Takes A Village, which she wrote when she was first lady. I found the book really interesting and well thought out (not the liberal diatribe some have accused it of being). Clinton interestingly visits some of the same themes as Curing the Human Disease, though her focus on children is different than my book's primary look at adult behaviors and motivators (why is it that all first ladies have thif kids/family focus? Is it like a Queen Mum thing where they are the nation's top mom?).

It Takes a Village also speaks explicitely about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which I have also been researching and including in the book. That is both cool and kind of intimidating - do I now have to rethink that content because it's also in her book?

The other thing about Clinton's book is how on-target it is in illuminating many of the problem's in American society. She nails the causes of the economic downturn that now afflicts us - from the lack of corporate regulation to rampant consumerism to failing educational systems.

This book was written in 1996...and it sold really well but I guess people didn't really take the thinking seriously? Were they too distracted by the Bill/Monica scandal? Or - in these modern times can a book really instigate societal change? That's a tough one to answer. Maybe It Takes a Village moved the needle a little - it's hard to prove. It's scary though because I am writing my book because I want to improve our world I'm wondering if that's a futile effort!