The Whole Earth Catalogue

First published in 1968 by Stewart Brand, The Whole Earth Catalogue introduced Americans to green consumerism and quickly became the unofficial handbook of the 1960s counter-culture. Winner of the National Book Award and a national best-seller, TWEC contained philosophical ideas based in science, holistic living, and metaphysics as well as listings of products that functioned within these confines. As many Americans sought to turn their backs on America's culture of consumption, TWEC offered an alternative paradigm based in values extending across the counterculture.

TWEC combined the best qualities of the Farmer's Almanac and a Sears catalog, merging wisdom and consumption with environmental activism and expression. The first page declared that "the establishment" had failed and that TWEC aimed to supply tools to help an individual "conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested." The text offered advice about organic gardening, massage, meditation, or do-it-yourself burial: "Human bodies are an organic part of the whole earth and at death must return to the ongoing stream of life." Many Americans found the resources and rationale within TWEC to live as rebels against the American establishment.

Interestingly, Brand did not urge readers to reject consumption altogether. TWEC helped to create the consumptive niche known as green consumerism, which seeks to resist products contributing to or deriving from waste or abuse of resources, applications of intrusive technologies, or use of non-natural raw materials. TWEC sought to appeal to this niche by offering products such as recycled paper and the rationale for its use. As the trend-setting publication of green consumption, TWEC is viewed by many Americans as having started the movement toward whole grains, healthy living, and the environmentally friendly products that continue to make up a signifi-cant portion of all consumer goods. Entire national chains have based themselves around the sale of such goods.

Even though green culture has infiltrated society, Whole Earth continues in the late 1990s as a network of experts who gather information and tools in order to live a better life and, for some, to construct "practical utopias." The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, for instance, claims to integrate the best ideas of the past twenty-five years with the best for the next, based on TWEC standards such as environmental restoration, community-building, whole systems thinking, and medical self-care.

—Brian Black

Further Reading:

Anderson, Terry H. The Movement and the Sixties. New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.

The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. San Francisco, Harper, 1998.