18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read for those in alternative health, March 3, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Children of the Sun (Paperback)
This book is a delight from beginning to end and a necessary education for those who think that hippies first appeared in the sixties or that raw foodism is a new thing. I was particularly fascinated to learn of the connections such big names as Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Hesse had to these early free thinkers, many of whom were vegans, raw foodists, and nudists.
_Children of the Sun_ also has much of interest for students of German history, owing to the fact that most of these alternative health groundbreakers were of German origins and were continuing a long tradition of social and health reform in that country.
Mr. Kennedy has done some excellent research, digging up photos from as far back as 1883 and historical text from much earlier. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Roots of Counterculture Run Deep, July 28, 2005
This review is from: Children of the Sun (Paperback)
Until I read Gordon Kennedy's research into the German nature cults that flowered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but whose roots preceded the Roman Empire, I did not fully understand my own art, writing and music, or my own life. Unbeknownst to me until I read Kennedy's books, my books Living on the Earth and Being of the Sun express fully the health practices and joie de vivre of those bygone frolicking pagan nudists. They are my true ancestors, the parents who would be proud if they could see me now. The naturist subculture lives on, and occasionally has its day in the sun, Children of the Sun being a case in point.
Anyone influenced by counterculture, and all students of history and sociology, will want a copy of Children of the Sun, or, at the very least, Kennedy's scaled down pamphlet version Hippie Roots and the Perennial Subculture, if only for the gorgeous photographs of the freaks of old, and the documentary/psychedelic art by German painter Fidus (1868-1948). No less thrilling are the revelations about Ascona, a counterculture settlement peopled by the likes of Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Isadora Duncan, D.H. Lawrence, Arnold Ehret and Franz Kafka in the early decades of the twentieth century. Kennedy notes the influence of the naturists upon Gandhi, and the dawn of the ecology, naturopathy, and youth hostel movements, including an astonishing environmental manifesto by Goethe.
Kennedy points out that feminism, vegetarianism, pacifism, communitarianism, organic farming, earth spirituality, fasting, raw food diets, and nudism flourished among these German counterculturals, some of whom moved to subtropical parts of the USA, often southern California, to avoid the rising imperialism and materialism of their homeland at the turn of the century. Settling in (then) remote areas of pristine beauty, including Tahquitz Canyon, near Palm Springs, they mentored the American naturists known in the 1930's, 40's and 50's as Nature Boys. The most famous of these were eden ahbez, who wrote the jazz standard "Nature Boy," and Gypsy Boots, who appeared often on the Steve Allen Show, and influenced countless baby boomer hippies through his writings, performances, and recordings.
I can easily imagine Kennedy's books inspiring documentaries, dramatic feature films, and museum exhibits.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
and i thought these sunfooders were a new movement..., October 21, 2000
This review is from: Children of the Sun (Paperback)
gordon kennedy has done an amazing job tracking the history of the sunfood movement. starting back before the turn of the 1900's and continuing through until 1949, he chronicles the major players and movements started in true health reform. chapters include doctors, artists, political anarchists, and other truth seekers in their attempts to share the wonders of raw foods with the world. chapters included touch base with heroes such as dr. louis kuhne, who thought that "he who will improve the world must speak openly of its errors."; dr. lust a german naturopath who looked at natural means - mainly diet - to heal dis-ease; and the california nature boys who slept in the open and ate a natural uncooked diet bring natural living to a whole new group of americans. this book is highly recommended because of the great pictures and the amazing amount of information included in the pages!! great job gordon!! buy this book today!!
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