Advance Praise
“In a world mired in shortsighted solutions, A New Reality takes a global view of our future with an inspiring mix of rationality and compassion. Jonas and Jonathan Salk do a masterful job of interweaving history and science with a deep respect for leveraging human solutions for human problems. They call for no less than a transformation of human consciousness as our survival comes to depend upon compromise, collaboration, and interconnectedness—a global tribe on a small planet. Insightful, powerful, and fascinating.”
—Lou Cozolino Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University and Author of Timeless: Nature’s Formula for Health and Longevity
“This is a book of great vision and optimism. While the Salks raise our awareness of the global challenges we face in this century, they also provide us a direction to reach a future of planetary health. This small yet powerful book shows us that we have the capacity to shape a balanced future that has never been realized before. There is urgency, but together we can achieve A New Reality.”
—Philip Enquist, FAIA, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
“A New Reality is a compelling message of hope, bringing Jonas Salk’s vision of ‘the evolution of the wisest’ to life. This is an essential book for anyone who cares about our health, our present, and our future.”
— Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global
“This book provides an urgently needed perspective on what we need to do collectively to transform our conversations and open our awareness to a new way of collaborating in order to cultivate the kind of connections and change we need in our world today.”
— Dan Siegel, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence
“This book is a brilliant, redesigned, reformulated effort by Jonathan Salk and David Dewane of Jonas’ vision of patterns in Nature and their application to humanity’s future. It validates his concept of Epoch B and his creation of the Epoch B Foundation of which I was a member in the 1970s and 80s.”
— Richard Saul Wurman, Creator of the TED, TEDMED, e.g., and WWW conferences
“A New Reality is actually a timeless one—our fragile planet can only sustain life of the species that understand its limits. The Salks have given us a sober reminder of that fact, but also a hopeful roadmap to a more sustainable future. I hope everyone pays close attention.”
— Terry Tamminen, CEO Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency
“Humanity is at a critical point in history. A New Reality confirms this in a powerful way. Enlisting the principles that Jonas and Jonathan Salk describe will lead to a positive, restorative future—a future where 10 billion humans can live within the Earth’s planetary limits in peace and harmony. A New Reality is a must-read for anyone who cares about our future.”
— Col. Ron Garan, Astronaut and author of The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles
“With A New Reality: Human Evolution for A Sustainable Future Jonathan Salk, son of the legendary scientist Jonas Salk, has given us a truly beautiful book. It’s beautiful visually and it’s beautiful in its simplicity, with the human condition elegantly captured by a single mathematical curve. But most of all it’s beautiful for its underlying message—that if we can find a way to work through the great challenges we face today as a civilization, a sustainable and harmonious future remains within our reach.”
— Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor, Penn State University and co-author of The Madhouse Effect
Attention
Ten Percent Happier | The Case for Optimism | Dr. Jonathan Salk. ABC News anchor Dan Harris interviews Jonathan Salk for the Ten Percent Happier Podcast, an audio podcast of ABC News. August 17, 2020. Listen to their conversation here. (1:03:38)
The virus has exploited so many weaknesses of our culture. But having exposed the weaknesses, such as inequities and reckless individualism, could the current crisis lead to a fundamental shift for humankind? That may sound utopian, but our guest today believes it’s genuinely possible. Dr. Jonathan Salk is an adult and child psychiatrist at UCLA. He’s been thinking about the future of the species for about 40 years, starting when he co-authored a book called A New Reality with his father, Dr. Jonas Salk. You might’ve heard of him. He invented the polio vaccine 65 years ago.
Five Books | The Best Books for Long-Term Thinking recommended by Roman Krznaric. July 16, 2020.
A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future was selected as one of five best books for long-term thinking by author and cultural thinker Roman Krznaric.
Open Mind | A New Reality. A discussion with author Jonathan Salk and Susan Smalley. June 22, 2020. Watch the video here.
Dr. Jonathan Salk shares a new message of understanding and perspective for today’s current confusion and conflict that we are experiencing. He provides us with a science-driven basis for hope and a groundwork for how we can achieve a better future for humanity. Susan Smalley, Ph.D., Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA joins Dr. Salk in conversation. Dr. Smalley is a renowned behavioral geneticist, writer and activist.
Beyond Well with Sheila Hamilton | Jonathan Salk/What Would the Creator of the Polio Vaccine Tell Us Now? April 21, 2020. Listen to the podcast here. Watch the video here.
The vaccine for polio was announced 65 years ago, in April of 1955. Dr. Jonas Salk who led the team that developed the vaccine understood the urgency of a pandemic, and more broadly, that the key to eradicating disease takes more than science alone.
In this interview with, Dr. Salk’s youngest son, Dr. Jonathan Salk, Beyond Well’s Sheila Hamilton talks about the human, social, political and economic relationships involved in eradicating disease.
The Hill | “What Jonas Salk would have said about COVID-19” by Jonathan Salk. April 13, 2020.
“Dr. Jonas Salk, who led the team that developed the first effective polio vaccine, was my father. Today, people often ask me, what he would have thought or done about our current pandemic. My full answer may not be the one they expect.”
Talks at Google | Jonathan Salk: “A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future.” July 1, 2019
“Our current place on the human population growth curve is a unique and critical moment, evolutionarily and historically. Child psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Salk’s [presentation for Talks at Google discusses] how we can survive and evolve through a basic shift in our values and behavior.”
SXSW 2019 | A New Reality has been chosen as one of SXSW’s 10 Books to Read in 2019 by SXSW Speakers. January 11, 2019.
“Looking for the perfect reading list to start 2019 off on the right foot? Read on to learn about the thought leaders joining us this March at SXSW and add their latest books to your reading list. . . . The SXSW Conference highlights some of the most inspirational thinkers and industry experts across 25 Tracks of SXSW-curated programming.”
The Young Turks | Dr. Jonathan Salk: The Future Is Brighter Than You Think. November 14, 2018.
Should you be more optimistic about the future? John Iadarola interviews Dr. Jonathan Salk about rational optimism on The Damage Report. 8:46 minutes.
LA Times | “There’s a rational, evidence-based argument for optimism for humankind. Really” by Jonathan Salk. November 6, 2018.
“Seven in 10 Americans across all age groups report negative feelings when asked about what’s happening today in the United States.
“But what if there were a rational, evidence-based argument for optimism? There is. But we have to step back from two- and four-year election cycles to see it. Much farther back.
“This optimistic scenario is as evidence-based as today’s widespread fear or pessimism. Humankind has demonstrated the ability to solve seemingly unsolvable problems. We can do so again. If we can broaden our outlook beyond the next few months or years, there are rational reasons to be hopeful about our future.”
BookTrib | “A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future” by Jim Parry. September 19, 2018.
“[This] newly published book by Jonas Salk and Jonathan Salk, outlines what we face and what we can and must do. Its relatively short text can be absorbed quickly. But its effects on the reader should be long-lasting.
“In a recent interview, Jonathan Salk talked about A New Reality — its past, its present and what is says for the future. . . . As Arianna Huffington says of the Salks’ book, ‘This is the cultural shift we need to make.’ As Jonathan Salk says, ‘We must acknowledge interdependence and institute collaboration – not because it is morally correct but because it is necessary.’ ”
Kate Raworth | “Seaside Reads to Change the World.” August 24, 2018.
Oxford academic and author Kate Raworth and Lucy Feibusch have compiled a list of three hundred recommendations in response to a bookshop owner’s question, “If I was going to create a shelf called ‘Change the World’, what books would you recommend to go on it?”
A New Reality is located in Paradigm Change (page 35 of the PDF and line 162 of the Googlesheet). An extract with the thirteen titles in the Paradigm Change section is available here.
CleanTechnica | “Population Reduction for a Sustainable Future: A Salk & Salk Book Review” by Carolyn Fortuna. August 14, 2018.
“A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future by Jonas Salk and Jonathan Salk outlines a vision of the future in which population reduction comes about as a direct response to new social customs and conventions. The book gives us the tools to safely broach the potential problems of population growth alongside ethical ways to respond to it.”
Seeking Alpha | “Long-Term Investing Trends in Global Future Scenarios” by Hazel Henderson. August 6, 2018.
Hazel Henderson writes that A New Reality and two other books “are the best recent antidotes for investors I have found to dispel the negativity and cynicism that inhibit the real reforms, courageous civic action needed at all levels to innovate, create and evolve the possible futures that await humanity. Their authors and co-editors have curated and present all these future opportunities from environmental, economic, financial, social and humanistic perspectives.
. . . These books are essential additions to the bookshelves of impact investors and asset managers, and on public and private decision-makers’ reading lists.”
Clean Edge | “Five Questions with Jonathan Salk on Human Evolution and a Sustainable Future” by Jonathan Salk with Ron Pernick. August 3, 2018.
Part of a series of insights from leading smart-grid, clean-energy, and utility experts speaking at gridCONNEXT. Questions asked by Clean Edge managing director, author, and gridCONNEXT co-chair Ron Pernick.
“Ethical Markets highly recommends this interview and we draw attention also to my review of Jonathan Salk’s book A New Reality now live at seekingalpha.com and here. I was fortunate to know Dr. Jonas Salk and his Survival of the Wisest first published in 1972 the same year as MIT published Limits to Growth report to the Club of Rome, led by Dr. Donella Meadows.”
— Hazel Henderson, Editor of Ethical Markets
C-SPAN Book TV | “A New Reality,” June 22, 2018.
“Psychiatrist Jonathan Salk, son of polio vaccine developer Jonas Salk, shared updated thoughts on world population and how it will affect the political and social climate.”
Population Media Center | “Shepherding in ‘A New Reality,’” Monthly eNews. July 12, 2018.
“On June 26, 2018, A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future was released. Although it certainly looks at a mix of science and culture, this book diverges from many sustainability books. Its ambitions and lessons are both grand and simple, interpreting, understanding, and creating a road map to address the largest human challenges by understanding one thing: the Sigmoid Curve.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | “After defeating polio, Jonas Salk tried saving the world from humans” by David Templeton. July 10, 2018.
“The message of the book explodes from the past and sheds light on tensions that plague us and the currents of discord that are raging as these words are written . . . ‘a truly beautiful book’ with the ‘human condition captured by a single mathematical curve’ that shows that ‘a sustainable and harmonious future remains within our reach.’”
La Jolla Light | “Jonathan Salk promotes vaccine made of hope at UC San Diego” by Will Bowen. June 7, 2018.
“In a way, psychiatrist Jonathan Salk — son of Jonas Salk, discoverer of the polio vaccine — is following in his late father’s footsteps. Like his famous father, Salk is offering the world a vaccine. His is not biological, but educational, made of altruistic ideas such as hope, cooperation and win-win interactions. Salk says, if distributed world-wide, it offers the promise of immunity in the coming age of global ecological and population disasters.”
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb: Q&A with Jonathan Salk. May 21, 2018.
Jonathan Salk is the co-author, with his father, Jonas Salk, of the book A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future, first published in 1981 and now updated in a new edition. Jonathan Salk is a psychiatrist based in Los Angeles. He teaches at UCLA.
U.S. News & World Report | “How to Save the Human Race: Abandoning the values of the past in favor of collaboration and sustainability will benefit the planet” by Gabrielle Levy. May 18, 2018.
“Until only recently, the whole of human history has been marked by population growth, first gradual and then, in the past two hundred years, a sudden explosion. But in the last decades of the 20th century, population growth began to slow, and eventually, it will plateau or even decline.
“The moment at which growth goes from accelerating to decelerating, according to a theory posited by Dr. Jonas Salk and his son Jonathan Salk in their book, World Population and Human Values: A New Reality, is called an inflection point — and would be filled with turmoil and conflict, but also opportunity.
“[N]early four decades on, Jonathan Salk has seen many of the theories posited by his father, who died in 1995, beginning to come true. Salk, now a psychiatrist, recently spoke with U.S. News about the revised book, A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future, and how this unprecedented moment in human history will shape our future.”
Re:MADE | Salk on Salk: A New Reality
“A conversation with Jonathan Salk about his collaboration with his father, Jonas Salk. Together in the early 1980s they wrote a prescient book of ideas about life facing millennials. A newly relevant and re-made edition of their book is now available.” Listen online or download the podcast. September 30, 2017.
Thrive Global | “A New Reality: Human Values and World Population” by Jonathan Salk. April 12, 2017.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | “Forgotten Jonas Salk book on population growth gets an update for a new generation” by David Templeton. April 11, 2017.
The San Diego Union-Tribune | “Salk book on human values being updated, reissued” by Gary Robbins. April 9, 2017.