“One of those rare books that one picks up and then knows within the first few pages is extremely important…extremely brave, spirited and well informed.” 

SIR RICHARD BRANSON, entrepreneur, founder and Chairman of the Virgin Group, adventurist, environmentalist, and humanitarian.

“The Watchman’s Rattle is a fascinating, in-depth analysis of what makes us, as human beings, so susceptible to extinction, even at the apparent height of our power . . . compulsory reading for world leaders at this crisis point in our existence.”

TRUDIE STYLER, founder of the Rainforest Fund, actress, executive producer, environmental advocate, and the wife of musician, Sting.

“The Watchman’s Rattle delivers the most important message of our time.”

JOHN PERKINS, economist and New York Times bestselling author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman and Hoodwinked. 

“The Gulf is drowning in oil, the housing market stumbles along, the Afghanistan conflict nears a decade long … why do all these problems seem so intractable and unstoppable?  Instead of hand-wringing we should all read Rebecca Costa’s The Watchman’s Rattle and start figuring out how to really solve these messes.  Few other books have so clearly and sharply captured how our symptom-obsessed society means we’re always looking for the quick fix and easy cure rather than searching for the deeper, longer-lasting solutions. Costa has pointed a way forward for all of us.”

TINA BROWN, editor-in-chief and founder of The Daily Beast, columnist, talk show host, bestselling author and former editor of Vanity Fair, Tatler and The New Yorker.

“Rebecca Costa has written a riveting examination of our world’s most dire and complex issues. Her message for mankind is an ultimately hopeful one as she explores her fascinating theory about the brain’s ability to develop advanced problem-solving techniques in times of crisis. A must read!”

DONALD J. TRUMP, real estate developer and entrepreneur.

“In The Watchman’s Rattle Rebecca Costa gets right to the point.  The complexities of modern life often stifle our deeper understanding of our lives.  Questions of philosophy and religion have been replaced by emotion.  The transactional supersedes the fundamental.  The dilemma is clear: only collective acts will solve our global problems, but our mindsets isolate us more and more as individuals.  Understanding this book is a big step toward becoming the master of our own destiny.”

WILLIAM “BILL” BRADLEY,  3-term United States Senator, Rhodes scholar, American Hall of Fame basketball player, author, and Corporate Director of Starbucks and partner at investment bank Allen & Company.

“Costa’s brilliance is to force us to step out of the muck of political gridlock and confusion of modern life and look at our society and issues through the lens of sociobiology.  We would do well to listen to her.”

JOHN F. ROSS, Executive Editor of American Heritage and Invention & Technology magazines, and author of War on the Run: Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier and The Polar Bear Strategy: Reflections on Risk in Modern Life.

“The Watchman’s Rattle will eventually take its place on the bookshelf amid many other laudable works that move human society one stop closer to a stable and graceful cohabitation of his planet.”

DR. PHILLIP BROWNELL, world renowned expert in the effects of chemosensory systems on animal behavior, naturalist, author, and Professor of Biology at Oregon State University.

“The Watchman’s Rattle is one of those rare books I pick up and then know within a chapter is truly important… it is also a fascinating read that challenges our very beliefs about how we solve the problems we face in a resource constrained world with a rapidly growing population.”

WILL WHITEHORN, President of Virgin Galactic, and often referred to as adventurist and entrepreneur Richard Branson’s “right-hand man.”

“Problems eventually become too complicated for the average intelligence — in The Watchman’s Rattle, Rebecca Costa depicts the real challenges this presents.”

DR. JAMES WATSON, Nobel Laureate responsible (with Francis Crick) for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, Harvard University Professor, and father of microbiology.

“Because the complexities of modern life are growing at a frenetic pace in a substantially unbridled way, our fundamental neurological limitations for dealing with them are increasingly, glaringly exposed.  Costa provides us with clear examples that illustrate the various ways that we have our pants down, when it comes to responding to societal issues that can degrade our lives and literally threaten the survival of our species on Earth.  “Who should we blame?” we ask ourselves, as we identify the many non-addressed problems that are on our own personal “Why isn’t anything (the right thing) being done about this?” list.

DR. MICHAEL MERZENICH, Doctor of Neuroscience at the University of California Medical Center, founder of Posit Science, Inc., honoree of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, Purkinje medal, Thomas Alva Edison patent award, Ipsen prize and Zulch prize of the Max-Planck Institute.

“One idea in this book that I could relate to was the disturbing fact that when the Mayan civilization faced mounting problems with drought and food shortages, they stopped thinking in a rational manner.  The government became gridlocked and they lost the ability to find real solutions to their problems.  When the problems with food shortages became more and more difficult, fighting increased.  They stopped working on finding better ways to grow food and conserve water. Today our government is gridlocked.”

DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN, Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, bestselling author of Animals Make Us Human and world renowned advocate for autism rights.

“I’m on the side of Rebecca Costa … In The Watchman’s Rattle, she presents a view of the parlous human condition with which I completely agree.”

DR. EDWARD O. WILSON, world-acclaimed naturalist, Professor of Biology at Harvard University, father of sociobiology and biodiversity, two-time Pulitzer prize winner, member of the National Academy of Sciences, winner of the U.S. National Medal of Science, , Crafoord prize, Kistler prize, Nierenberg prize and over one-hundred distinguished awards and one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential people in America.

“I’d name our brains as the primary culprit for our unconscious rush toward collective suicide. But Ms. Costa makes an excellent case for rethinking this notion – and giving our not so primitive brains another chance.”

CHRIS PAINE, iconic American filmmaker, writer and director of Who Killed the Electric Car, executive producer of Faster and No Map for These Territories and founder of Mondo-Tronics and Internet Outfitters.

“Rebecca Costa does not think like you or I do. She is one of the most innovative   thinkers I have ever come across: and, as a venture capitalist, I am in the business of innovative thinking.  The Watchman’s Rattle is an important book for the new century.  My hope is that policy makers and leaders across our society will read this book and debate its insights.”

DAVID PREND, former Director of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), early pioneer in Cleantech, and principal of Rockport Capital Partners.

“Rebecca Costa offers a perspective of our current predicament that is both logical and hopeful. . . The Watchman’s Rattle is an important call to collective action at a critical juncture in our human evolution.”

WILLIAM LEAHY, conservationist, Executive Director of The Big Sur Land Trust and former Director of The Nature Conservancy.

“The Watchman’s Rattle is a broad and deep book … To say it is ‘thought provoking’ is akin to observing that Miles Davis was ‘kind of original’.”

ANDY BUTLER, entrepreneur, Chief Executive Officer of D2M, founder of Wedge Innovations and Robotoolz, and honoree of the Smithsonian Institute’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. 

“Edward O. Wilson forcefully asserts that this is the century of biology, our opportunity to focus on the life sciences and do the research essential to our solving the problems that Rebecca Costa examines so carefully and pragmatically in this book, problems that will otherwise be ruinous. . . Wilson and Costa are trying to wake us up. If we read their writings and follow their guidance, we will prevail.”

NEIL PATTERSON, Emmy-award winning producer of science documentary films, former CEO of W.H. Freeman and Company, cofounder of Scientific American Books, and President of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.

 “A refreshing approach to chronic social problems … bound to inspire debate in public policy.”

DR. JOHN SUMSER, Professor of Sociology, California State University, Stanislaus, author and humanitarian.

“A brilliant understanding of how we got to our current predicament, and how we may well emerge from it relatively intact.”

THOM HARTMANN, New York Times bestselling author and host of The Thom Hartmann Program.

“As a journalist and historian, I would have avoided so much misery trying to navigate and explain the complications of modern life if The Watchman’s Rattle had been available to clear away the cobwebs in my over-worked brain.”

DAN KURZMAN, award-winning journalist, 30-year foreign correspondent for the Washington Post and author of The Bravest Battle: The Twenty-eight Days Of The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and other bestselling nonfiction titles.

“Like the Oracle at Delphi, Rebecca Costa in The Watchman’s Rattle is calling us to know ourselves and thereby giving us a chance to save us from ourselves.”

DR. JOHN RATEY, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, bestselling author of Spark, A User’s Guide to the Brain and Driven to Distraction and child advocate.  

“It’s time for smarter, wiser, more insightful voices to be heard.  Rebecca Costa leads the growing chorus.”

DR. BOB WILLARD, sustainability guru, Professor at the Presidio Graduate School, author of The Sustainability Advantage and The Sustainability Champions Guidebook.

“These ideas have to be assembled in a novel way and the value of doing that must be recognized.”

DR. CHARLES TOWNES, Nobel Laureate in Physics responsible for the discovery of the laser and Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Rebecca Costa has managed to put together an extremely readable, thoughtful, well-researched challenge to her readers.  By far, the uniqueness of the book is that she presents her thoughts and facts in such a way that has the reader nodding and saying ‘you know, these are all logical, understandable, and things that I should have been thinking about.’”

HAL BEHL, co-founder and Trustee of the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and 40-year veteran in the aerospace industry.

REGGIE BEHL, internationally recognized artist and art instructor for the University of New Mexico and University of California.

“It’s this roadmap — for nurturing insight, practicing parallel incrementalism, and overcoming cognitive gridlock — that makes The Watchman's Rattle such an important book to help humanity more effectively address the many massive challenges we face today, and one that is worthy of its subtitle, ‘Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction.’”

GIL FRIEND, conservationist, Professor at the Presidio Graduate School, President and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc., and author of The Truth About Green Business.

"This is going to be another monster when it hits the bookshelves. . .  I think of it as a manual serving as the antidote to Jared Diamond's Collapse.”

DR. ALI BINAZIR, author of Smart Ideas for Smart Living, Doctor of Medicine from the University of California at San Diego and Cambridge, and pioneer in hypnotherapy.

“In her book The Watchman’s Rattle, Rebecca presents her observations and conclusions on problem solving in a complex world, in a comprehensive and attractive way. She has distilled volumes of research material and made it understandable to the average reader with limited scientific background. Through her words we discover that modern man’s behavior and ability to confront the very serious dilemmas of terrorism, natural disasters, the environment, water and food are genetically limited.”

SHARON CRINO, CEO of the American Red Cross, Monterey Bay Area Chapter, and former Executive Vice President of Eastman Kodak.

"A game-changing message. . ."

DAVID STEINBERGER, Chief Executive Officer of Perseus Book Group.

“Sociobiologist and futurist Costa presents innovative messages about dealing with the many issues facing modern civilization.  . . . (We) can’t reduce the value of this engaging book as a warning and a resource. It will give concerned readers new hope in human capability.”

DAVID R. CONN, Library Journal.

“She's a real force and I wouldn't be surprised to see her on the talk shows this fall.    The book's scary subtitle addresses her central question: ‘Why can't we think our way out of extinction?’”

NORA RAWLINSON, EarlyWord: The Publisher | Librarian Connection.

"The Watchman’s Rattle is a very interesting and exciting book. Interesting because it gives a new understanding of the disappearance of major civilizations and exciting because it gives us an opportunity to take a new look at the world we live in and what we can do about the things we want to change. I could not put it down, it was interesting and fascinating and after finishing it I had to make a list of people want to send this book to as soon as it comes out in October. I also found things in my life to re-examine and it will enhance my ability to work with the charities I am involved with.”

BRIGITTE WASSERMAN, global philanthropist and child advocate.

“… a book worth reading, not because you will agree with everything in it, but because you will be reminded of your responsibility to be a thinking human being.”

DAN LAURIA, award-winning actor in “The Wonder Years,” “From Earth to the Moon,” “Independence Day,” “Army Wives,” and “Criminal Minds.”