Customer Reviews

Sources: An Anthology of Contemporary Materials Useful for Preserving Personal Sanity While Braving the Technological Wilderness

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Theodore Roszak is probably best known for his seminal "The Making of a Counter Culture," which is still the single best in-depth book about that movement. But here's another book from that same time, one that's long been relegated to the memory hole of quaint, dated, 1960s artifacts that nobody could possibly be interested in now.

Except that the cultural & spiritual questions it addresses are even more pertinent & pressing today.

Even as I write this review, the ghastly ecological disaster of the BP oil spill edges into its third month -- the pointless wars in Iraq & Afghanistan drag on with no end in sight -- the rich get richer as corporations tighten their stranglehold on the world -- and the public loses itself in "American Idol," the prosperity gospel, vague New Age platitudes, toxic doses of media violence & emotionless sex, reactionary politics, anti-intellectualism, iPhones and the Internet --

But there's no need to go on. The crisis of our time is plain, and cries out for alternative philosophies & worldviews -- in short, a more human & humane culture to counter the empty, glittering facade of the contemporary mainstream.

In 1972, Roszak compiled this anthology of readings, which he described as "...useful for preserving personal sanity while braving the great technological wilderness." While a few selections haven't stood the test of time, which is only to be expected, most transcend the time-specific and speak to us just as eloquently today as 40 years ago. Here are glimpses of roads not taken, but still desperately needed.

The readings are grouped in 5 sections: Person, Body, Community, Whole Earth, and Transcendence. You won't find a lot of the usual 1960s subjects here; instead, you get the likes of Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, Norman O. Brown, Paul Goodman, Pablo Neruda, Martin Buber, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, William Blake, and so many more. There's a fair amount of poetry, and far more exploration of the psychological & spiritual dimensions than mere partisan politics.

Roszak's work has always run deeper than the politics of the moment, though his extensive knowledge of those politics always informs his work. But his true concerns are visionary, the salvaging of the human soul & spirit from the materialistic wasteland. The true enemy isn't any one political ideology, but the technocratic underpinnings of them all.

If you can set aside nostalgia & the one-dimensional media cliches of the 1960s, you'll soon discover that these sources remain potent, offering guideposts to a different & better way of life, one rich in meaning rather than consumerist garbage. This is treasure indeed - most highly recommended!