Person
Charles Eisenstein
American writer, philosopher, and speaker (b. 1967) whose work reframes economy, ecology, and meaning around the concept of gift — relationship and reciprocity rather than transaction and accumulation. Author of Sacred Economics (2011), The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013), Climate: A New Story (2018), and others. Among the most-read contemporary voices in the regenerative-finance and gift-economy movements; his work has informed bioregional currency experiments, ecological-economics frameworks, and meaning-of-money reframings worldwide.
Life and writing
Charles Eisenstein graduated from Yale (1989) with a degree in mathematics and philosophy. After a period in Taiwan working as a translator and immersing in Asian philosophical traditions, he returned to writing and lecturing on themes that became his life’s work — ecology, economy, and the cultural narrative of separation.
His books are widely read in regenerative, ecological-economics, and meaning-and-purpose communities. He writes essays, speaks at conferences, and runs online courses; he has consistently declined institutional positions in favor of independent writing.
Major books
- The Ascent of Humanity (2007) — the long-form argument that the modern crisis is rooted in a “story of separation” (humans from nature, individuals from community, present from past and future)
- [[sacred-economics|Sacred Economics]] (2011) — see [[sacred-economics|the book’s own page]]
- The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013) — the cultural/spiritual companion to [[sacred-economics|Sacred Economics]]
- Climate: A New Story (2018) — argues for a relational, place-based reframing of climate work, against narrow carbon-accounting framings
- Numerous essays and lectures
Why he matters here
Eisenstein is one of the contemporary voices articulating the philosophical substrate of regenerative work. His writing makes explicit what most farmers and conservationists implicitly know: the dominant economic story produces the destruction the regenerative movement is trying to undo, and reorienting around gift, reciprocity, and ecology requires a cultural change deeper than policy.
For 0mn1.one — a platform that aims to fund worldwide abundance through commerce — Eisenstein’s reframing of money as a tool of gift, not an end in itself, is foundational philosophical infrastructure.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Written by: [[sacred-economics]]
- Member of: [[person]]
- Pioneer of: [[regenerative-finance]] · [[true-cost-of-food]]
Sources
- [[sacred-economics|Sacred Economics]] (2011, North Atlantic Books / EVOLVER)
- The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013)
- Author website and published essays
Rooted in life.
What links here, and how
Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.
Cultural
pioneer of
- Gift economy Eisenstein's *Sacred Economics* (2011) is the central contemporary articulation of gift-economy thinking for ecological-economics audiences
shares approach with
- Local currency Eisenstein's *Sacred Economics* discusses local and complementary currencies as transitional infrastructure for an economy reorganized around gift and place
2 inbound links · 4 outbound