Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (Paperback)

by Alan Weisman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
In the early 1970s, a unique community was founded in the los llanos region of Colombia. Located north of the Amazon rain forest, this region is an expansive savannah, sparsely populated and generally considered uninhabitable. Gaviotas originated out of the belief that the current state of urban expansion and poverty and the continued depletion of natural nonrenewable resources could not be sustained and that the future required people to learn how to live in harsh, inhospitable environments and to do so in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner. Journalist Weisman tells the story of a remarkable and diverse group of individuals (engineers, biologists, botanists, agriculturists, sociologists, musicians, artists, doctors, teachers, and students) who helped the village evolve into a very real, socially viable, and self-sufficient community for the future. The people of Gaviotas today produce innovative technologies (solar collectors, irrigation systems, windmills, and hydroponic gardens) that use the environment without depleting or destroying it. While some of their creative endeavors have not succeeded, even the failures tend to spawn ideas for future successes. Weisman does a fine job of detailing Gaviotas's evolution and placing it within the larger global historical context. The story he presents is wonderful testament to human creativity, commitment, and effort toward building a socially viable and environmentally sustainable future.?Karen Collamore Sullivan, Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Saginaw, MI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
...a book telling a tale too lovely for fiction, a lyrical, well-observed book that reports from the llanos of eastern Colombia, savannas tortured by guns and cows and cocaine, of an experiment in solar democracy in which "appropriate technology" is anything but a sad product on the discount tables of broken, post-sixties idealism. -- The Nation, Tom Athanasiou --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890132284
• ISBN-13: 978-1890132286
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #466,299 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Reinvent Our Goals, September 14, 2001

By	Jason N. Mical (Bellevue, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Alan Weisman, a journalist hired by NPR to investigate solutions for environmental crises, spent years collecting information in a tiny, remote village at the eastern edge of the war-torn country of Colombia. That village was Gaviotas; this book is his result.

I read this book on a recommendation from Daniel Quinn, author of "The Story of B" and "Beyond Civilization." Quinn's entire philosophy rests on two ideas: living in a sustainable manner, and allowing the reader to come up with their own solutions for doing so. Gaviotas is a community where people did just that - through ingenuity, creativity, and hard work, the residents of this planned village created a place where water is pulled from the ground using pumps attached to children's see-saws, heat is provided by the sun, and electricity by the wind.

It's a progressive's dream come true, and an experiment that has succeeded in all possible ways. This book lays out the history of Gaviotas and its unique founder, Paolo Lugari, and places it within the context of the ongoing struggles in Colombia. In the wake of the World Trade Center attack, I decided to re-read Gaviotas to remind myself that not only is there hope for humanity as a whole, but hope that individuals will begin to take responsibility to begin freeing ourselves from the confining forces of our self-imposed prisons called "civilization," but still manage to retain the good things, too.

Every person on earth should read and re-read this book. If you haven't, buy it now or start hoofing it to the library.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The challenge of sustainability in a chaotic world, December 21, 1999

By	Craig Stern (Flagstaff, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A captivatingly inspirational account of story that reaches to the core of what is remarkable about human nature, human courage, and human ingenuity achieving something great and important in the face of daunting conditions. The continuing adaptive accomplishments of the Gaviotas people in the face of multiple challenges -- extreme environmental conditions, corrupt government practices, turbulent and deadly national politics, indifferent and unsupportive post-1980s corporate globalization, continuing uncertainty -- is truly an affirmation that people can, and hopefully will, achieve a kind of society that is both ecologically sustainable and humanly necessary. This book is 'the power of one' writ large on our collective future.

I teach a university course entitled: Humanistic Values in a Technological Society and, in the face of social and environmental problems caused by industrialization and electronic media-technology, it is difficult for the title not to seem a proverbial oxymoron. In the future this book will be required reading so that students can see that indeed there are solutions to our collective problems, both human and technological. One reviewer bemoaned that there was no 'useful information' in the book, meaning it was short on technical details (I am sure this will follow if sufficient positive interest is shown to this publication). In response I would point out that the people of Gaviotas have shown that the most important and necessary 'commodity' of the future is and will be human inspiration and perseverance; given these, the details will follow. I thank Alan Weisman for telling the Gaviotas story.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Utopia? No. Topia? Yes., February 10, 2000

By	GENE GERUE "Author, Find Your Ideal Country Home" (Zanoni, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (Hardcover)

In 1966, when he was 22, Paolo Lugari and his brother drove over barely passable roads to a desolate area 200 miles east of Bogota, Columbia. The llanos area is a poor-soil barren that grows only a few nutrient-deficient grasses, a vast expanse of sun-baked plains in spite of over 100 inches of rain per year. A place of deadly water and hungry mosquitos. Conditions were so daunting that the Columbian government abandoned an attempt to build a road through the area. Lugari saw an opportunity to create something very special. And he did it. Today Gaviotas is a thriving, sustainable community of hundreds of joyous people studying, inventing, producing, singing and dancing amidst a huge forest that they planted. Residents from all walks of life have designed and built, planted and harvested, birthed, nurtured, taught, and entertained. There are teeter-totters that operate super-efficient pumps to bring water to the school, solar heat to cook meals, solar kettles to sterilize drinking water, ultra-light windmills to provide power. The hospital has been designated one of the 40 most important buildings in the world. Some have called Gaviotas a utopia. Lugari insists that, "Utopia literally means no place. We call Gaviotas a topia because it's real." Gaviotas the village is surprising, uplifting, extraordinary. Gaviotas the nonfiction book is as compelling as a novel, as educational as a textbook, as inspirational as the biography of a great person. If you need to rise early, do not take this book to bed with you.