Download the PDF: Voluntary Simplicity: Cool Lifestyle for a Hot Planet
This is the first chapter in my completely revised edition of Voluntary Simplicity (published in 2010 by Harper Books). Offers an updated overview of the shift toward more sustainable and compassionate ways of living.
Download the PDF: The Garden of Simplicity
This short overview of the diverse expressions of “simplicity” has been requested many times. Here is the most recent, open-source version from the new edition of Voluntary Simplicity.
Download the PDF: Peril and Promise
“Peril and Promise” An interview with Duane Elgin by Arnie Cooper for The Sun Magazine, August 2002
Duane Elgin helped define the trend toward a life of sustainable prosperity back in 1981 with his first book, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (Morrow). In that now-classic text, updated in 1993 and again in 2010, Elgin encouraged us not just to cut back on consumption and ease our busy schedules, but to live a life with purpose, in which every action is the result of a conscious choice.
Download the PDF: Pioneers of an Awakening Culture
“Upshifters: Pioneers of an Awakening Culture”, an interview with Duane by Sarah van Gelder and published in Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Summer/Spring 1996, Seattle, WA.
Moving toward simpler ways of living has sometimes been called “downshifting.” Duane turns this notion on its head and describes a life of voluntary simplicity as one of “upshifting” to a way of life that is more sustainable, satisfying, and soulful.
Download the PDF: Voluntary Simplicity.
An article by Duane and Arnold Mitchell, published in the Co-Evolution Quarterly, Summer 1977. This was initially published in 1976 as a report by the major think-tank, SRI International, to give insight into grass-roots changes underway as a growing number of people begin developing more sustainable and satisfying ways of living. It was then published in Co-Evolution Quarterly and included a “’simplicity survey.” The survey also generated a tidal wave of feedback–more than a thousand pages of letters. These first-hand accounts established a broad and trustworthy foundation in lived-experience for the book Voluntary Simplicity, published in 1981
Download the PDF: The Value Of Voluntary Simplicity
By Richard Gregg, originally published in August, 1936 in the Indian Journal Visva-Bharati Quarterly and by the Quakers at Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1936. This is the original article on voluntary simplicity that inspired me to write his book by the same name in 1981. Gregg was a Harvard graduate and a student of Gandhi’s teachings. In this article, Gregg explores the spiritual, social, and economic reasons for choosing a life path of greater simplicity.