Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents:

1. Seeds of the possible

Seamus Heaney, From The Cure at Troy

Diane Ackerman, A Slender Thread

Jonathan Kozol, Ordinary Resurrections

Marian Wright Edelman, Standing Up for Children

Danusha Veronica Goska, Political paralysis

2. Dark Before the dawn

W.H. Auden, From September 1, 1939

Howard Zinn, The Optimism of Uncertainty

Nelson Mandela, The Dark Years

Vaclav Havel, An Orientation of the Heart

3. Everyday Grace

Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

Antonio Machado, From Last Night As I Was Sleeping

Scott Russell Sanders, Mountain Music

Arthur Waskow, The Sukkah of Shalom

Rose Marie Berger, Getting our Gaze Back

Henri Nouwen, Fragile and Hidden

Parker Palmer, There is a Season

4. The Flight of our Dreams

Eduardo Galeano, Celebration of the human voice

Pablo Neruda, Childhood and poetry

Susan Griffin, To Love the Marigold

John Lewis, Walking with the Wind

Rosemarie Freeney Harding, Freedom Songs

Toni Mirosevich, Rough Translation

Walter Wink, Jesus and Alinsky

Vern Huffman, Stories from the Cha Cha Cha

Sherman Alexie, Do not Go Gentle

Tony Kushner, Despair is a Lie We Tell Ourselves

5. Courage is contagious

Marge Piercy, To Be of Use

Victoria Safford, The Small Work in Great Work

Rosalie Bertell, In What Do I Place My Trust

Paxus Calta-Star, Not Deterred

Jim Wallis, Faith Works

Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life Story

6. The Global Stage

Martin Espada, Imagine the Angels of Bread

Arundhati Roy, Come September

Ariel Dorfman, The Black Hole

Kenneth Roth, Hope for Human Rights

Mark Hertsgaard, The Green Dream

Bill McKibben, Curitiba

7. Radical Dignity

Adrienne Rich, From Natural Resources

Jalaluddin Rumi, How Have You Spent Your Life

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Paul Rogat Loeb, The Real Rosa Parks

Cornel West, Prisoners of Hope

Carla Seaquist, Behemoth in a Bathrobe

Billy Wayne Sinclair, Road to Redemption

Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall, Resisting Terror

8. Beyond Hope

Elizabeth Barette, Origami Emoticon

Sam Hamill, From The New York Poem

Mary- Winne Ashford, Staying the Course

Joanna Macy, The Elm Dance

Nadezha Mandelstam, Hoping against hope

K.C. Golden, The Inevitability Trap

Sonya Vetra Tinsley, as told to Paul Rogat Loeb, You Have to pick you team

Margaret Wheatley, From Hope to Hopelessness

9. Only Justice Can Stop a Curse

Maya Angelou, Still I Rise

Alice Walker, Only Justice can stop a curse

Terry Tempest Williams, The Clan of One-Breasted Women

Starhawk, Next Year in Mas'Ha

Amos Oz, The Gruntwork of Peace

Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness