Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #431608 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
It's tough to categorize Burning Man. Is it an excuse for thousands of anarchic, sexually uninhibited people to do drugs and destroy things? A massive, do-it-yourself arts festival for the punk avant-garde? Or is it the "spontaneous flowering" of a new, subversive culture? Reason magazine editor Doherty explores these definitions and others in this gushing yet well-researched mix of journalism and memoir. Burning Man began in the mid-1980s, when some friends burned a wooden effigy on a California beach. The event soon relocated to the Nevada desert, where, apparently, the civilized world's rules no longer applied. People could play golf with burning toilet paper rolls or whip each other at the Temple of Atonement. One year, someone piled 10 tons of half-burned pianos on top of each other, creating a huge "metapercussion instrument." Another year, a man calling himself "Dr. Megavolt" donned a metal suit and danced with electricity generated by a towering Tesla coil. By 2003, more than 30,000 pilgrims were participating, and Burning Man had become a $6-million "culture business" that many saw as a sellout of its humble origins. Doherty is an enthusiastic devotee, and he adds his own memories to this account. This insider's look at a cornerstone of American subculture is informative, though nearly as chaotic as Burning Man itself. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
True-believer Doherty loves Burning Man, the annual festival for aging Aquarians and seekers of all New Agey^B stripes that involves the erection in the Nevada desert of a giant statue alongside a temporary city of alternative lifestyle enthusiasts practicing, to varying degrees, alternative models of commerce, artistic pursuit, and other social and recreational gambits for about a week. Then the giant statue gets torched, and everybody returns to presumably more humdrum everyday pursuits. The fest encourages a "no spectators" attitude to the effect that celebrants' doings aren't to be reported, and Doherty attended four times before he "dreamed of writing about it for public consumption." Now he presents a combination of what he witnessed and experienced and "journalistic re-creations" of the stories and reminiscences of some 100 interviewees, including people he "just lived moments with." How sixties can you get? This magical approach, while it makes the book questionable as verifiable social reportage, serves the BM ethos well. A lovingly, if not crisply, written tribute. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin
"Burning Man is a wondrous topic, and Brian Doherty handles it well."

Customer Reviews

quick read ...
good book, just to know about the history of the celebration and some good pictures. quick read ...

Great inside view of Burning Man
"This is Burning Man" is an excellent view on the Burning Man festival held every year in the desert near San Francisco. The book provides a rare multi-viewpoint perspective on the festival and it's researched very well.

The first part of the book describes the history of the burning man event, how Larry Harvey one day decided to burn a wooden man in the golden gate park and how it created an audience of people who organized around the burning of the man. He decided to do it again and slowly the burning man event was created. It describes how Larry hooked up with several other groups and how they moved to the middle of nowhere, in the desert. The stories about the early days of the burning man event are insane and clearly describes the sense of freedom that's part of the burning man event.

The second part of the book focuses more on the later years of burning man and describes the different viewpoints as it follows several different people and their burning man history. It talks about the art creation, the city build-up, the city cleaning, the expressions of total freedom and the shared sense of making the event a better place. Near the end of the book, it tells how burning man has now grown and how, unfortunately, the original atmosphere started changing and how everything is slightly more controlled. That's probably inevitable for growing an event like burning man.

The book is exceptionally well researched and the writing style is clear. The author tells the many stories from his research while linking it with his own experience and his own opinion. I enjoyed reading burning man, recommended for everyone interested in the burning man event.

I tought I burned lots of men until I read Burning Man!
I just finished reading the day that John Law sued the other founders over the name. So what we they call it now?
For someone who would like to but cannot attend Burning Man it is fun to read. I did not go to Woodstock either. (Too pregnant.)
The book really is an underground networker's dream.