Jeremy Lent | Author and Integrator
NEW BOOK
Ecocivilization:
Making a World that Works for All
Coming May 26, 2026
A bold, practical vision for humanity’s future
As climate chaos, inequality, and social fragmentation intensify, humanity faces an imminent choice: continue with a system built on extraction and endless growth, or reimagine civilization itself.
Leading thinker Jeremy Lent offers that reimagination: an ecocivilization, grounded in proven design principles of ecosystems and in humankind's evolved inclination toward justice, mutuality, and dignity.
The book doesn’t merely diagnose what’s broken. It reveals how our current civilization—designed for exploitation, accumulation, and elite power—is functioning exactly as it was intended. In its place, Ecocivilization charts a radical yet feasible alternative.
Leading thinker Jeremy Lent offers that reimagination: an ecocivilization, grounded in proven design principles of ecosystems and in humankind's evolved inclination toward justice, mutuality, and dignity.
The book doesn’t merely diagnose what’s broken. It reveals how our current civilization—designed for exploitation, accumulation, and elite power—is functioning exactly as it was intended. In its place, Ecocivilization charts a radical yet feasible alternative.
Explore a Future Both Hopeful and Practical
— Technology reconfigured to empower people rather than entrench centralized power --
— Cities designed around wellbeing, community, and balance with nature --
— Democracy reinvented so regular citizens—rather than oligarchs—shape collective destiny --
— Corporations legally restructured to serve life and people, not just profit --
— Enforceable Rights of Nature legislation protecting all of Earth's sentient beings --
Backed by years of research, Ecocivilization goes beyond critique to articulate a coherent, achievable vision for humanity’s next chapter.
It is both a roadmap and a manifesto—a call to imagine, and build, a better future on a regenerated Earth.
PRE-ORDER ECOCIVILIZATION:
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ECOCIVILIZATION
EARLIER WORK BY JEREMY LENT
"One of the greatest thinkers of our age"
George Monbiot, The Guardian
George Monbiot, The Guardian
The Web of Meaning, integrates science and traditional wisdom to lay out a solid foundation for a worldview of deep interconnectedness
USA/Canada
New Society Publishers
UK/Commonwealth
Profile Books
WINNER OF TWO NAUTILUS AWARDS, 2022
GOLD AWARD
WORLD CULTURES' TRANSFORMATIONAL
GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
WORLD CULTURES' TRANSFORMATIONAL
GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
SILVER AWARD
SCIENCE
& COSMOLOGY
SCIENCE
& COSMOLOGY
JOIN THE DEEP TRANSFORMATION NETWORK
An online community for people who recognize that our civilization is in existential crisis—and who want to engage with others in facilitating a deep transformation toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.
The Deep Transformation Network invites open-hearted, caring, and curious folk, engaged citizens, and changemakers from around the world to come together in helping catalyze the deep transformation our global society needs.
The Patterning Instinct explores the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day.
Prometheus Books, 2017
2017 Nautilus
Silver Award Winner
Social Sciences and Education Category
Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.
His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His more recent award-winning The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future.
Lent is the founder and host of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community of over 5,000 members exploring pathways toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth. Lent has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization, and is a founding member of the Ecocivilization Coalition, a worldwide alliance of changemakers coming together to act as a transformation catalyst in service of this potential future. He is president of the Coalition’s parent, the Institute for Ecological Civilization, and is a board member on the executive committee of the Global Compassion Coalition.
His upcoming book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, will be published by Melville House in May 2026. The book lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecocivilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and wealth accumulation. It demonstrates the specifics of an alternative, positive future available for humanity, weaving together the groundbreaking work of visionary leaders, thinkers, and communities around the world.
Lent is recognized as a leading authority on the theme of an ecological civilization. He has published numerous articles on this and related topics since 2018, in media such as Open Democracy, Salon, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Alternet, Kosmos Journal, and YES! Magazine, where his article headlined an issue featuring ecological civilization. He has contributed several chapters on the topic to book-length anthologies exploring positive futures, as well as journal articles.
His upcoming book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, will be published by Melville House in May 2026. The book lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecocivilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and wealth accumulation. It demonstrates the specifics of an alternative, positive future available for humanity, weaving together the groundbreaking work of visionary leaders, thinkers, and communities around the world.
Lent is recognized as a leading authority on the theme of an ecological civilization. He has published numerous articles on this and related topics since 2018, in media such as Open Democracy, Salon, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Alternet, Kosmos Journal, and YES! Magazine, where his article headlined an issue featuring ecological civilization. He has contributed several chapters on the topic to book-length anthologies exploring positive futures, as well as journal articles.