New times create new needs – and new needs require new solutions. The New Pioneers is a practical guide for capitalists and idealists on how to navigate in the new economic world order. It is about the social megatrends that are shaping our lives in new ways and creating a new face of capitalism. And it is about the pioneers that are paving the way for the new business revolution: this century's generation of visionary leaders, social entrepreneurs and social intrapreneurs. 'Hardcore business people are realising that they can increase their profits by incorporating social responsibility into their business, and heartcore idealists are realising that the use of market methods helps them meet their social goals successfully,' argues Tania Ellis. With a wide array of cases from all over the world Tania Ellis explains the key principles of sustainable business success. Read The New Pioneers to gain insight into the new rules that are paving the way for business unusual – for the benefit of humanity and the bottom line. Learn more about The New Pioneers and join the movement of sustainable businesses and social entrepreneurs at www.thenewpioneers.biz

&"[P]ractically everyone I know is nursing fantasies about escaping the life they're trapped in and creating one that makes more sense,&" writes the editor of Utne Reader in a recent issue. &"The people I most admire, though, are those who actually do it&—who break free and pursue a higher calling no matter how great the risk.&" New Pioneers is about one such group of people&—the hundreds of thousands of urban North Americans who over the past three decades have given up their city or suburban homes for a few acres of land in the countryside. Jeffrey Jacob's new pioneers are ordinary people who have tried to break away from the mainstream consumer culture and return to small-town and rural America. He traces the development of the movement and identifies seven different kinds of back-to-the-lander: the weekender, country romantic, purist, country entrepreneur, pensioner, micro-farmer, and apprentice. From over 1,300 survey responses, interviews, and in-depth case studies, at both the regional and national levels, of representative back-to-the-landers, Jacob analyzes their values, use of appropriate technology, family division of labor on their acreages, and predisposition toward environmental activism. Jacob finds that back-to-the-landers for the most part are not completely independent of the mainstream economy, and consequently, their lives do reflect the contradictions between the available conveniences of a high-technology culture and the movement's goals of self-reliant labor. He analyzes their ambivalent attitudes toward technology&—hoes and shovels versus mini-hydroelectric systems, wood stoves versus microwave ovens, and so on. After examining the experiences of the back-to-the-country people who live on the margins of a postindustrial society, Jacob creates a clearer appreciation of the preconditions necessary to translate the idea of sustainable living into concrete action on a society-wide scale. While New Pioneers describes an important social movement, it also shows how far a group of highly motivated individuals and families can go, by themselves, in breaking away from the prevailing consumer culture. The dilemmas, frustrations, adaptations, and triumphs of these neo-homesteaders offer valuable insights to anyone contemplating a move &"back to the land.&"

Imagine a world where there are no building codes, no licensing requirements, no permit fees, no inspectors—no rules or regulations, only common sense and the desire to build something better. This is the world that forged America, the land where the early pioneers and town developers thrived. But this type of open environment is long gone. It's prohibitively expensive for young entrepreneurs to start a business today. In fact, it is almost impossible to build anything unless you are part of a larger organization that has the expertise and resources to navigate the system. Our municipal, state, and federal codes, from business permitting and OSHA compliance to occupational licenses and tax requirements, have blossomed out of control. Today's innovators and builders must ignore the rules, go to places where the rules are not enforced, or figure out how to get around them. The New Pioneers is the story of Americans—millennials, immigrants, artists, and entrepreneurs—who are doing just that in cities across the nation, including Detroit, San Diego, New Orleans, Phoenix, and many more. Written by journalist J.P. Faber, The New Pioneers shows the entrepreneurs of today, especially those in urban areas, how they can work around obstacles to create wealth and revive our cities. Small business owners and individual builders have the power to fix what's broken in society—if only they are allowed to do so. This book is an optimistic look at how we can rebuild our cities and jump-start more small businesses. It shows how we can make far better use of our resources, both human and physical. The New Pioneers paves a road to success in a crumbling world. It's time for the little guy to have a fighting chance to get ahead once again.

"As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent figure in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as trees of a size never imagined, floods, fires, wolves, bears, even an earthquake, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments."--Dust jacket.

When the young Swedish-descended Alexandra Bergson inherits her father's farm in Nebraska, she must transform the land from a wind-swept prairie landscape into a thriving enterprise. She dedicates herself completely to the land—at the cost of great sacrifices. O Pioneers! [1913] is Willa Cather's great masterpiece about American pioneers, where the land is as important a character as the people who cultivate it. WILLA CATHER [1873-1947] was an American author. After studying at the University of Nebraska, she worked as a teacher and journalist. Cather's novels often focus on settlers in the USA with a particular emphasis on female pioneers. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the novel One of Ours, and in 1943, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Business model innovations are conceived and implemented by a special type of entrepreneur: business model pioneers. This book presents 14 compelling case studies of business model pioneers and their companies, who have successfully introduced new business ideas to the market. The examples range from industries such as retail, media and entertainment to services and industrial projects. For each example, the book provides information on the market environment at the time of launch and illustrates the driving forces behind these business models. Moreover, current market developments are highlighted and linked to the evolution of the business models. Lastly, the authors present the profile of a typical business model pioneer.

For more than a century, American communities erected monuments to western pioneers. Although many of these statues receive little attention today, the images they depict—sturdy white men, saintly mothers, and wholesome pioneer families—enshrine prevailing notions of American exceptionalism, race relations, and gender identity. Pioneer Mother Monuments is the first book to delve into the long and complex history of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering pioneer monuments. In this book, historian Cynthia Culver Prescott combines visual analysis with a close reading of primary-source documents. Examining some two hundred monuments erected in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present, Prescott begins her survey by focusing on the earliest pioneer statues, which celebrated the strong white men who settled—and conquered—the West. By the 1930s, she explains, when gender roles began shifting, new monuments came forth to honor the Pioneer Mother. The angelic woman in a sunbonnet, armed with a rifle or a Bible as she carried civilization forward—an iconic figure—resonated particularly with Mormon audiences. While interest in these traditional monuments began to wane in the postwar period, according to Prescott, a new wave of pioneer monuments emerged in smaller communities during the late twentieth century. Inspired by rural nostalgia, these statues helped promote heritage tourism. In recent years, Americans have engaged in heated debates about Confederate Civil War monuments and their implicit racism. Should these statues be removed or reinterpreted? Far less attention, however, has been paid to pioneer monuments, which, Prescott argues, also enshrine white cultural superiority—as well as gender stereotypes. Only a few western communities have reexamined these values and erected statues with more inclusive imagery. Blending western history, visual culture, and memory studies, Prescott’s pathbreaking analysis is enhanced by a rich selection of color and black-and-white photographs depicting the statues along with detailed maps that chronologically chart the emergence of pioneer monuments.