Note: While fiction often includes violence, I want to remind everyone that one of the 10 key values of the U.S. Green Movement is nonviolence.
Book Cover Display
Book Deal- Buy Ecotopia for $2.75-$6.12 as of 9/2/01.
Book Deal- Buy Island for $1.40-$4.00 as of 9/2/01.
Utopias/Ecotopias
Bantam Paperback edition.
Original and less expensive Bookpeople edition.Book Deal- Buy Ecotopia for $2.75-$6.12 as of 9/2/01.
Ecotopia, by Ernest Callenbach. Written in 1975. You can also purchase the original 1975 Bookpeople edition. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Ecotopia Emerging, by Ernest Callenbach. Written in 1981. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Book
Deal- Buy Island for $1.40-$4.00 as
of 9/2/01.
Island, by Aldous Huxley. Written in 1962. Click here for a detailed commentary. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Peace Trek Family Coloring Book. Created by Joel and Diane Schatz, art by Diane Schatz. Edited by Suzanna Spiro. A detailed coloring book for kids of all ages with commentary and thought-provoking questions about the world and how we can change it. Initially published in 1986, this book, based on the wonderful Peace Trek poster, provides a holistic green picture or vision of what a peaceful world would look like and contrasts that with a picture of what a greedy militaristic world would look like. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Dreaming is a fun song about one hippie-leftist's utopian/ecotopian dreams.
Paperback edition.
Very inexpensive Dover Thrift
edition. Less than $2.Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. Written in 1888. You can also purchase a very inexpensive Dover Thrift edition. Looking Backward 2000-1887 is a utopian novel about a utopian socialist society evolving in America by the year 2000. It was a very influencial novel that was translated into 20 languages, influenced John Dewey, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, and others, and sparked some political activism. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Paperback edition.
Very inexpensive Dover Thrift edition. Less
than $1.50.
Mass market paperback edition.Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Written in 1915. You can also purchase a very inexpensive Dover Thrift edition or a mid-priced mass market paperback edition. A feminist utopian novel. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
- See also Building An Ecologically Sustainable Society. -
Eco-fiction
Earthfuture: Stories from a Sustainable World, by Guy Dauncey. Published in Feb. 2000. Click here for a description. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Save 40%. Only $8.97 as of 12/5/00.
Hardcover
edition.
Book and Audio Cassette edition.The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. Written in 1971. A powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of unrestrained capitalism destroying the earth. Previously available as a video and currently available as a book and audio cassette. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Click here for a description. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Publisher out of stock in
Dec. 2000.Ishmael (audio cassette), by Daniel Quinn. Click here for the book description. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Goods News, by Edward Abbey. Written in 1980. A novel about life in the future American Southwest after civilization underwent eco-collapse. In the book's own words, "In the great Southwest, a new breed of settler, whites and Indians together, is creating a new way of life in the wilderness- a pastoral economy- with skills and savvy resurrected from the pre-industrial past. Meanwhile, in the last surviving bastion of urban life, the remnants of the power elite are girding their armed forces to reimpose the old order." Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Anti-Utopias
We can either build the future we want or get stuck with a future we don't want. Building a utopian future takes foresight, vision, planning, and work, while neglecting the future can lead to a negative or even anti-utopian or dystopian future.
1984, by George Orwell. Written in 1949. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Out of print.1984 (video), by John Hurt. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Mass Market paperback edition.
1999 movie version..
Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Written in 1946. You can also buy the 1999 movie version and/or earlier movie versions. Animal Farm is a good cautionary tale for people involved in social change, which I hope more Americans will choose to be involved in. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Huxley classic anti-utopian novel, written in 1932. His lesser-known utopian novel Island is much more inspiring. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
Brave New World Revisited, by Aldous Huxley. In 1958, 26 years after writing Brave New World, Huxley decided to write a book analyzing the world situation and comparing it with the world described in his novel Brave New World. He includes chapters on over-population, "quantity, quality, morality", over-organization, propaganda in a democratic society, propaganda under a dictatorship, the arts of selling, brainwashing, chemical persuasion, subconscious persuasion, hypnopaedia, education for freedom, and "What can be done?".
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Written in 1953. In this anti-utopia, television dominates a society in which people rely upon TV for entertainment and emotional support and radical thought is eliminated by the power structure by the systematic banning and burning of books. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Written in 1985. A chilling portrayal of a right-wing military theocracy running a future ecologically devastated America. You can also buy the audio cassette version. Reviewed by Amazon.com.
The Handmaid's Tale (video), by Natasha Richardson. Reviewed by Amazon.com.