Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World's Oldest People

by Karl-Erik Sveiby, Tex Skuthorpe

In this unique journey into traditional Aboriginal life and culture, a European business-management professor and an Aboriginal elder collaborate to create a powerful and original model that western societies can use to build environmentally sustainable organizations, communities, and ecologies based upon the same Aboriginal traditions that allowed the Aborigines to create sustainable societies in very fragile landscapes.

Genres: Indigenous, Nonfiction, Australia

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2006

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book and interesting, less insightful conclusions, but well worth reading today despite its age

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Respect as a verb, 'it means that you allow people to see you in your true from, as you are. you show your true self only to people you respect, people you think worthy of the effort, and who you consider as having the capacity to understand what you mean and how you are. showing yourself as you truly are to another person, as such, is a sign of respect. i sometimes hear tex thanking a group of people 'for the respect.' he is not thanking them, as most of them probably believe, for listening to him, but he is thanking them for allowing him to see them a they truly are."

[Mark Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone with an interest in Aboriginal Australia as it was before Europeans arrived will want to read this for "insider" explanations of Aboriginal Australian society, including how communities were organised, why Aboriginal communities had no kings or chiefs (something that puzzled those European colonisers who bothered to think about it), how knowledge was transmitted, why it seems Aboriginal groups rarely if ever fought "wars", due to the complex kinship system that bound each tribe/community to those surrounding them, and more.

[Jen Carruthers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bible for modern day. This book tells me what I want to hear about how our Indigenous people knew how to take care of this country and that we have so much potential to respect and learn from them.