There are parallels between the cultural and political climate of the 1970s and current global conditions. However, we feel that an important difference is in the absence of a massive counter-cultural movement for change. We face many of the same problems: large-scale ideological wars, energy crises, environmental devastation, destructive global capitalism and more. The hopeful quality of these books encourages us in developing a movement of our own, in the form of how-to manuals with the explicit intent of building a new society of optimistic resistance.