Written & narrated by M. Scott Peck, M.D. - Abridged Nonfiction - 4 CASSETTES - 5 hours

Publisher, Bantam Doubleday Dell (March 1993)

M. Scott Peck is known to millions for the profound psychological and spiritual journeys on which he has guided people in his earlier bestselling printed and audio books.

A World is Waiting to be Born

In this, his long-awaited major new work, Dr. Peck brings us the most urgent messages and the most important guidance toward change he has ever offered.

We are a deeply ailing society. Our illness is incivility, by which Dr. Peck means conduct far more serious than a want of politeness. Morally destructive patterns of self-absorption, callousness. manipulativeness, and materialism are so ingrained in our routine behavior that we often do not recognize them. In multiple ways we engage in subtle forms of unconscious hurtfulness toward ourselves and others that have come to be accepted as the norm in society.

Yet there is a growing awareness that something is seriously wrong. And the necessary change is not only possible, it is achievable. We can learn to restore civility to our lives — as individuals, in our marriages and families, and in the workplace. We can make the spiritual commitment that is a cornerstone of civility. We have the power and the knowledge to become a truly civil society.

Using examples from his own life, case histories of patients who sought his psychiatric counsel, and dramatic scenarios of businesses that have made a conscious decision to bring civility to their organizations, Dr. Peck demonstrates where we have gone wrong and how change can be effected. The process is likely to be painful — change hurts — but without change there is no growth, and without growth we are only half-alive.

Dr. Peck offers a concrete, step-by-step program to restore us and our organizations to health. The key to generating organizational health is developing community, like civility itself an explicit concept with explicit components, including spiritual commitment. This wise, radical, and practical work is a blueprint for change — indeed, Dr. Peck proposes that in restoring our institutions to civility may lie the brightest prospects for both our personal and our societal well-being.