Writing about how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things, Thomas (Tad? Can we call him Tad?) introduces to Stephanie May (whose daughter, Elizabeth May, has long served as leader of the Green Party in Canada), a housewife who started a movement from her kitchen table that led to the development of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963. 
"In those days, getting lots of people to sign a petition wasn't just a matter of a few keystrokes and clicks on a website. Stephanie and Virginia opened the yellow pages of their phone books at Clergy and, starting at letter A, called every minister, priest, and rabbi in the vicinity, asking them to distribute the petition to their congregations. In a little over two weeks, after making over three hundred phone calls, they'd gathered two thousand signatures from regular citizens and prominent community members, including scientists, doctors, and professors." - pg 14, Commanding Hope, Thomas Homer-Dixon, on Stephanie May.
Her movement grew. She was joined by Nobel Prize winners, resulted in an anti-testing lawsuit against the governments of the U.S.A., Soviet Union, and UK. She was invited to sit on the board of the National Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy. She spoke to crowds of more than 100,000 (the largest demonstration London had seen in the 20th century) in Trafalgar Square at a march from the British Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. 
Despite fierce opposition, more people paid attention. 
"Stephanie May, her fellow mothers, fathers, children, activists, and protestors in many countries, along with concerned scientists, test-ban negotiators, and key visionary political leaders had accomplished something truly remarkable. Their accomplishment was a product of their hope,  just as it was an enormous source of hope for others too. But the full story of that hope - its origins, its true meaning, the source of its power, and why we urgently need something similar today - must still be told." - pg 16, Commanding Hope.

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