The Greening of America

In 1970, The New Yorker Magazine ran a 39,000-word excerpt of ‘The Greening of America' -- the longest in its history. Then the book was published. It caused a firestorm. Written by Charles Reich, a distinguished professor at Yale Law, it showed how a once-free America had become a Corporate State that made no one happy. And then it suggested a remedy.

The way out? It wasn't political change --- for Reich, politics came last. The first and most important thing: Consciousness. As he saw it, America had outgrown "Consciousness I," which had helped form a nation of free individuals. It had outgrown "Consciousness II," which was corporate and heartless. Now it was time for "Consciousness III," in which people would turn away from the quest for traditional success and forge a new, personal path to satisfaction.
In short: Change the way you think, help others do the same, and soon the system has to change.

Sound familiar? This is very much what the "Occupy" movement is saying now. But Reich said it first, and in a way that excited readers (two million copies sold).

‘The Greening of America' is a brief history of America that will be of interest to all readers who wonder why the United States is having such trouble responding to new realities. But it may be of particular interest to Americans who care about politics, for the issues in Reich's book are now being played out on the national stage. On one side, Consciousness I politicians tell us that the solution to all our problems is a return to a time when men took care of their own business and government barely existed. On the other side, Consciousness II politicians argue that the federal government can best protect us from an unregulated marketplace and a shredded safety net.

And then there is 'The Greening of America.' Can there be a “revolution,” as Reich wrote, that starts with culture and the individual? Might it triumph without violence? Or are we doomed to struggle to avoid a soul-crushing existence in the Corporate State?

'The Greening of America' has been out of print for years. For this edition, we have compressed a 125,000-word book to a crisp 25,000 words. And Charles Reich has added a new foreword and final chapter.

===========

CHARLES REICH graduated from Oberlin College in 1949 and received his LL.B. in 1952 from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. In 1953, he was a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black. He became an associate professor of law at Yale in 1960, and, from 1964 to 1974, was professor of law. Four years after the publication of “The Greening of America,” he left Yale and moved to San Francisco. In addition to his writing, he has been a visiting professor at the University of San Francisco Law School, the University of California at Santa Barbara and, from 1991 to 1995, Yale Law.