Amazon.com: People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia (9780870499890): Michael I. Niman: Books


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $2.25 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia
 
See larger image
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia [Paperback]

Michael I. Niman (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Price: $18.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 4 left in stock--order soon.
Want it delivered Monday, February 27? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Library Binding --  
Paperback $18.95  

Book Description

October 22, 1997

Since 1972 the Rainbow Family of Living Light, a loosely organized and anarchistic nomadic community, has been holding large gatherings in remote forests to pray for world peace and create a model of a functioning utopian society. Michael I. Niman’s People of the Rainbow, originally published in 1997, was the first comprehensive study of this countercultural group and its eclectic philosophy of environmentalism, feminism, peace activism, group sharing, libertarianism, and consensus government. It is a book yet to be superseded.

This second edition of Niman’s compelling and insightful work brings the Rainbow story up to date with a new introduction and two extensive new epilogues. While the big annual Rainbow “Gatherings” have drawn fewer numbers in recent years, Niman notes, the Rainbow ethos has in many ways migrated to the mainstream, as Rainbow notions about alternative medicine and environmental sustainability, for example, have gathered wider acceptance and influenced the national dialogue. Meanwhile, Rainbow movements in other regions, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Asia and Australia, are thriving.

In addition to addressing changes within the Rainbow Family and its complex relationship
to “Babylon” (what Rainbows call mainstream culture), the book’s new material explores the growing harassment Rainbows now face from U.S. law enforcement agencies—
especially those associated with the National Forest Service. As Niman contends, this particular saga of a U.S. bureaucracy at war with its own citizens is a subplot in the larger—and disturbing—story of how the relationship between Americans and their government has changed during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

In its nuanced portrait of an intriguing subculture, its successes, and its limitations, People of the Rainbow remains a significant contribution to the study of utopian communities in the United States and their ongoing legacy.

Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and media studies in the Communication Department at Buffalo State College in New York.

For additional resources related to this new edition, see http://buffalostate.edu/peopleoftherainbow.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community $11.93

People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia + Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community
  • This item: People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The Rainbow Nation is a loosely knit group of countercultural activists ("hippies") that has organized gatherings in remote rural areas since 1972. Drawing on the methodology of participant/observer, Niman (American studies, SUNY at Buffalo) offers a sympathetic profile outlining the group's guiding mission to uphold and practice the values of nonviolence and cooperative living and to provide an alternative to the urban rat race. While he suggests that the tribe has been largely successful in terms of adhering to its founding ideals, Niman also points out that individual gatherings have been marred by poor group dynamics and disruptive behavior. One of the more notable features of Niman's approach is his effort to link the Rainbow to earlier utopian movements. "Rainbow ideology syncretizes Euro-American traditions with Thoreauvian pacifism, simplified 'New Left' politics, and the 'Eastern' religious ideas that flooded America in the years just prior to the first Gathering." The text is accompanied by several photographs by Gabe Kirchheimer, whose work has also appeared in the New York Times. Recommended for American studies collections.?Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Since 1972 the Rainbow Family of Living Light, a loosely organized and anarchistic nomadic community, has been holding large gatherings in remote forests to pray for world peace and create a model of a functioning utopian society. Michael I. Niman’s People of the Rainbow, originally published in 1997, was the first comprehensive study of this countercultural group and its eclectic philosophy of environmentalism, feminism, peace activism, group sharing, libertarianism, and consensus government. It is a book yet to be superseded.

This second edition of Niman’s compelling and insightful work brings the Rainbow story up to date with a new introduction and two extensive new epilogues. While the big annual Rainbow “Gatherings” have drawn fewer numbers in recent years, Niman notes, the Rainbow ethos has in many ways migrated to the mainstream, as Rainbow notions about alternative medicine and environmental sustainability, for example, have gathered wider acceptance and influenced the national dialogue. Meanwhile, Rainbow movements in other regions, from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Asia and Australia, are thriving.

In addition to addressing changes within the Rainbow Family and its complex relationship
to “Babylon” (what Rainbows call mainstream culture), the book’s new material explores the growing harassment Rainbows now face from U.S. law enforcement agencies—
especially those associated with the National Forest Service. As Niman contends, this particular saga of a U.S. bureaucracy at war with its own citizens is a subplot in the larger—and disturbing—story of how the relationship between Americans and their government has changed during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

In its nuanced portrait of an intriguing subculture, its successes, and its limitations, People of the Rainbow remains a significant contribution to the study of utopian communities in the United States and their ongoing legacy.

Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and media studies in the Communication Department at Buffalo State College in New York.

For additional resources related to this new edition, see http://buffalostate.edu/peopleoftherainbow.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 274 pages
  • Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press; 1 edition (October 22, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0870499890
  • ISBN-13: 978-0870499890
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,282,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars This is the best book available on the Rainbows, January 9, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia (Paperback)
Michael Niman's book is the most objective and comprehensive study to date of the Rainbow Family of Living Light. Professor Niman utilizes numerous interviews with Family members, Forest Service officials, and other participants to present a well-rounded view of a complex social system. Of particular interest will be his comparison of the Rainbow Family to other Utopian societies of the past and present.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very readable and enjoyable piece of non-fiction, October 19, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: People Of The Rainbow: Nomadic Utopia (Paperback)
Having been to a few Rainbow Gatherings in my past, Niman's book caught my interest. However the book is not written only for those familiar with the Rainbow Familiy. Using a combination of participant observation and comparison to other utopian societies, Niman shows the complexity of this community of choice.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars While by no means exhaustive, this is a enjoyable scholarly look at Rainbow traditions from the founding to 2010., February 10, 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
For several years now I've attended Rainbow Gatherings, month-long intentional communities set up in forests and dedicated to peace and harmony, veganism, ecological living and disconnecting from technology. I share few of the values of most people there, but I love to attend because the events are a remarkable and rather paradoxical spectacle: in spite of no formal organization, thousands of people have managed to convene regularly for four decades in a decided place and set up needed infrastructure; in spite of a ban on commercial activity, thousands are fed; in spite of the wildly different religious and political beliefs of attendants, Rainbow Gatherings are generally harmonious events where *everyone* is made welcome.

But while I've participated in Gatherings in Europe, Turkey and Israel, I knew little about Gatherings in the place it all began: the United States. Michael I. Niman's PEOPLE OF THE RAINBOW: A Nomadic Utopia is an ethnographic study of the North American Rainbow phenomenon, based on the author's own involvement in this community. The book was originally published in 1997; this second edition leaves the earlier text unchanged, but adds a new epilogue discussing recent developments.

Niman begins the book in perhaps the best possible way: an account of one typical day at a Rainbow Gathering. Through the eyes of Sunflower, a character based on the author, we follow Rainbow life from waking up in the morning to falling asleep at night. Sunflower passes through the usual places set up at gatherings, such as kitchens, communal fires and music-making circles, he engages in leisure or volunteering for tasks that need to get done (activities which are not necessarily distinct from each other at Rainbow), and he interacts with folks from a diversity of backgrounds.

After this introductory chapter, Niman's study is more formal, citing documentary evidence and interviews carried out in the field. In describing Rainbow traditions and the people involved, he often draws comparisons to other North American utopian communities from the 17th century to the present day. Niman also describes the relationship between Rainbow Gatherings and the world around them. One aspect of this is media reporting, and Niman has exhaustively trawled archives to show how the Rainbow Family is portrayed in the press. The other confrontation between Rainbow and the outside world is with the US Forest Service and law enforcement officers, which has ranged from harmonious to dirty tactics and violence on the part of the government.

While Niman is sympathetic to the Rainbow Family, an active member himself, he nonetheless takes a critical view at times. In spite of an emphasis on tolerance and inclusion, Rainbow Gatherings have taken few steps to attract African-Americans and the disabled. Though decisions are supposed to be made by the consensus of all present, few participate in decision-making sessions and inevitably power hierarchies arise. But perhaps the most serious critique of Rainbow traditions comes in the chapter "Fakelore". Rainbow Gatherings often claim Native American heritage. One tradition, the myth that the Rainbow Family is foretold by a Hopi prophecy, has spread to Rainbow communities all over the world:

"There will come a time when the Earth grows sick and when it does a tribe will gather from all the cultures of the World who believe in deeds and not words. They will work to heal it ... they will be known as the 'Warriors of the Rainbow.'"

Niman debunks this supposed prophecy, showing how it has no basis in authentic Hopi lore (or any other Native American belief) but appeared for the first time in a 1963 tract of Christian evangelism. Furthermore, he notes that Native Americans do not welcome Rainbow appropriation of their culture and identity, and several native groups have called such appropriation a form of genocide. Nonetheless, members of the Rainbow Family continue to claim that they are in tune with Native American spirituality, perhaps even more than actual Native Americans today.

The new epilogue focuses on two relatively recent Rainbow trends. The first is the spread of Rainbow Gatherings all over the world. The first Rainbow Gathering outside the US was held in Switzerland in 1983, and now European Rainbows have their choice of several gatherings a year. The annual World Gatherings have been held on six continents. At any given moment, a Rainbow Gathering is going on somewhere. Unfortunately, this section is much less detailed than I expected. There are some notable differences in culture and logistics between North American Rainbow Gatherings and ones in other countries, but Niman does not describe them.

The second recent trend is the appalling crackdown on Rainbow Gatherings in the United States by government. Niman was present at the 2008 North American Rainbow Gathering when law enforcement, in the pursuit of one man reported to be in possession of marijuana, fired weapons into a children's day care camp. (He was helping to film the documentary "We Love You", which has video of this incident.) He charts how law enforcement at Gatherings are becoming militarized, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on strategies that only encourage conflict with these peaceful hippies who cause little trouble (Niman cites arrest figures at Gatherings, which turn out to be quite low, with many charges thrown out in court). It is easy to dismiss a law enforcement crackdown if the people involved are a weird subculture (much like what is happening with Open Wall Street protests as I write this), but Rainbow Gatherings reflect the changing relationship of the American people with their government. As Niman writes in the closing words of the book, "The Rainbow Family, with its persistent insistence on maintaining what it sees as a constitutionally protected right to gather, has become the proverbial canary in the mineshaft of freedom."

I must say that I'm appalled by the print quality of this book. It is on cheap paper that looks like it will yellow or become brittle in short order. Half of the pages have ink stains from the facing page, and the text is set in an unsightly sans serif typeface. There are photographs, but one cannot make out any detail because they are printed on this awful paper instead of plates. But at least the 2nd edition is accompanied by a website where one can download many source documents, including the results of Freedom of Information Act requests from the Forest Service and other government agencies.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews




Only search this product's reviews



What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Create a Listmania! list

So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject