Product Description

Providing readers with up-to-the-minute information on everything they need to live wisely in the new millennium, an updated guide includes a 1996 supplement that features revised access information and late-breaking trends.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89417 in Books
• Published on: 1994-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.com Review
"If you want to maintain independence in the era of large institutions, you are going to need good tools." So begins Rheingold's introduction to The Millenium Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of reviews of books, magazines, tools, software, video- and audiotapes, organizations, and services plus ideas on whole systems, sustainability, community, health, sex, household, family, technology, politics, communications, travel, livelihood, and learning. Items are listed in the catalog if they are deemed: "useful as a tool, relevant to independent education, high-quality or low-cost, and easily available--preferably by mail order." Highly recommended.

From Booklist
The Whole Earth Catalog and its progeny have been part of American life since the countercultural movements of the sixties. First published in 1968, supplements came out until March 1971's "last supplement." Later in 1971, there was The Last Whole Earth Catalog, and 1974 ushered in The Updated Last Whole Earth Catalog and The Whole Earth Epilog. The 1980s brought several editions of The Next Whole Earth Catalog and The Whole Earth Software Catalog. The Essential Whole Earth Catalog gleaned some of the best of its "tools and ideas" and seemed to end it all. But then 1990 brought Whole Earth Ecolog: The Best of Environmental Tools and Ideas. All along, Whole Earth Review, Coevolution Quarterly, or Whole Earth Software Review have kept the alternative vision in print.

And now, The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, "committed to helping people think and act independently." While earlier versions promoted practical information for those going "back to the land," this newest edition includes information for dealing with the world of computers and the virtual community. Editor Rheingold wrote Virtual Reality (Simon & Schuster, 1992) and The Virtual Community (Addison-Wesley, 1993).

In this catalog reviewers evaluate "books, magazines, tools, software, video and audiotapes, organizations, services, and wild ideas." The work's contents are arranged in "domains," such as biodiversity, community, health, sex, political tools, and learning. Each domain covers from a few to 50 or so topics. The communications domain, for example, has pages on writing, language, "zines" (both printed and electronic), desktop audio and video, bulletin board systems, the Internet, and investigative reporting. The Internet section's five pages include a helpful introduction, descriptions of features from E-mail to the World Wide Web, access nodes, and recommended background resources.

The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog is formatted in the same effective style as its forebears. It provides meaty excerpts and commentaries, phone and fax numbers, E-mail and "snail mail" addresses, photos of book covers and computer screens, diagrams, and drawings on its oversize pages. Book reviews, which make up a good bit of the work, usually include an annotation, three or four paragraph-length excerpts, and a picture. Often "other great resources" are noted. While this work includes an eight-page index, many users will browse and follow the frequent cross-references.

The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog will be a welcome addition to the shelves of most public, academic, and high-school libraries. Circulating copies are a must.

Review
For over 25 years, the Whole Earth staff has been delivering cutting edge information to those who were wise enough to pay attention. The quarterly Review has struggled through hard times and continues to give us info-bites on everything from sheep farming to cyberpunks to counterculture, with particular emphasis on self-sufficiency and community building. The presentation style is terrific and the material endlessly fascinating. (One of our major influences in creating The WomanSource Catalog--our infusion of the feminine into the info-kingdom.) Since the first Whole Earth catalog in the 1970s, this crew has had their finger on the pulse of the most innovative thinking and technology long before they ever hit popular culture. Concepts like "fuzzy logic," which are just getting to mainstream consciousness, appeared in The Next Whole Earth Catalog almost 15 years ago. Lucky for us after many years of catalog-less existence, we are blessed with The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, poised once again to transport us into the far reaches of knowledge and info-dom. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by Ilene Rosoff