Greening of America
by Charles Reich
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles ReichEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 1997-04-22
ISBN: 0517174979
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
Book Reviews of Greening of America
Book Review: Yet another revolutionary proved wrong by history
Summary: 1 Stars
Back in the 1970s you couldn't cross a college campus without seeing hundreds of copies of this book everywhere you looked. Hip young professors taught it. Proto-revolutionaries held it aloft. Idealistic youngsters thought it portended a new age.
All nonsense, of course. Reich's manifesto is ill-argued, historically ignorant, and with the advantage of 36 years of hindsight, absolutely wrong in everything it predicted. It begins:
"There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past.It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act..."
...and goes on and on about new conciousness arising, transcending the material world and so forth. It's sort of as if Marx's Communist Manifesto was written by a Deadhead who'd had one two many tokes over the line. And Reich knew his audience, and how to flatter them:
"This is the revolution of the new generation. Their protest and rebellion, their culture, clothes, music, drugs, ways of thought, and liberated life- style are not a passing fad or a form of dissent and refusal, nor are theyin any sense irrational. The whole emerging pattern, from ideals to campus demonstrations to beads and bell bottoms to the Woodstock Festival, makes sense and is part of a consistent philosophy. It is both necessary and inevitable, and in time it will include not only youth, but all people in America."
Yes, beads and bellbottoms are "part of a consistent philosophy." I was never quite sure if that was evidence of a deluded middle-aged man (Reich was 40 or 41 when the book was published) trying desperately to identify with the youth culture that had passed him by, or merely a cynical attempt to cash in on the passion and ignirance of the young. Not that it matters; the end result is the same.
The number of reviews thus far suggests that the current generation of Luddites has yet to embrace this book and carry it aloft in the manner of Mao's shock troops, as they tend to do with the writings Chomsky; for that we can be thankful. But doubtless they will eventually glom on to it, ignore the history that proved it nonsense, and once again march in the streets demanding higher conciousness for all.
Summary of Greening of America
The 25th Anniversary of the Groundbreaking Classic. "If there was any doubt about the need for social transformation in 1970, that need is clear and urgent today....I am now more convinced than ever that the conflict and suffering now threatening to engulf us are entirely unnecessary, and a tragic waste of our energy and resources. We can create an economic system that is not at war with human beings or nature, and we can get from here to there by democratic means."--from the new Preface by Charles A. Reich.Book Subjects
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