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Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
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Ecotopia (original 1975; edition 2004)

by Ernest Callenbach

Series: Ecotopia (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,2452915,425 (3.54)25
Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a "stable-state" ecosystem: the perfect balance between human beings and the environment. Now, twenty years later, the isolated, mysterious Ecotopia welcomes its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston. Like a modern Gulliver, the skeptical Weston is by turns impressed, horrified, and overwhelmed by Ecotopia's strange practices: employee ownership of farms and businesses, the twenty-hour work week, the fanatical elimination of pollution, mini-cities that defeat overcrowding, devotion to trees bordering on worship, a woman-dominated government, and bloody, ritual war games. Bombarded by innovative, unsettling ideas, set afire by a relationship with a sexually forthright Ecotopian woman, Weston's conflict of values intensifies-and leads to a startling climax.… (more)
Member:FrancoisTremblay
Title:Ecotopia
Authors:Ernest Callenbach
Info:Heyday Books (2004), Paperback, 172 pages
Collections:Fiction, Your library
Rating:****
Tags:utopia

Work Information

Ecotopia : The notebooks and reports of William Weston by Ernest Callenbach (1975)

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» See also 25 mentions

English (27)  French (1)  German (1)  All languages (29)
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 10
Prose: 7.5 ( )
  MXMLLN | Jan 12, 2024 |
Ich habe ein Buch bei BookCrossing.com registriert!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13651585

Kaum zu glauben, dass das Buch schon über 40 Jahre alt, aber wie aktuell es dabei ist. Etwas zu viel Hippie-Kultur, aber absolut lesenswert. ( )
  Stonerrockfan | Oct 8, 2023 |
I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, it's an interesting and insightful set of ideas about what an independent Cascadia might look like, and the values of the culture that would grow there. On the other hand, as a book it's more than a little pulpy and chauvinistic - a relic of its time for sure. Callenbach's vision of a utopian future also misses the mark pretty significantly on race, one of the places Ecotopia has diverged quite starkly from reality. Ultimately it's an interesting read about what some people might have hoped the future held for us, and a vision of what we might aspire to, wrapped in an imperfect and in some places quite flawed package. ( )
  DarthFisticuffs | Jul 20, 2023 |
I was first introduced to this book on the first day of my high school junior year by my chemistry teacher (Berk M.). Read the book out of curiosity and then finally bought my own book for my collection. ( )
  usma83 | Aug 28, 2022 |
Of course, it's fun to read SF novels that prophesize about a future date that we're either at now or have already passed. This utopian novel is set in 1999, published in 1975. SF is full of dystopian novels that're projective critiques of the present tense. This is one of the rarer ones that critiques (what was) the present tense by postulating a utopia (of sorts) that's presumably rooted in the hopes that counterculture had for communes, eg. It's, perhaps, in the company of some of the work of Ursula LeGuin & Joan Slonczewski but I think I like their work more.

On page 115, under a heading of "Workers' Control, Taxes, and Jobs in Ecotopia" it's explained that "the people, seeing the former owners depart, realized that a new era was indeed upon them and began spontaneously taking over farms, factories, and stores. The process was chaotic, but it was not anarchic; it was controlled by the local governments and local courts." Did I say "utopia"? I take that back. ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (7 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Ernest Callenbachprimary authorall editionscalculated
Ingram, AshleyCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Margolin, MalcolmForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
ECO-
from the Greek oikos
(household or home)

-TOPIA
from the
Greek topos (place)

In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
--Barry Commoner
Dedication
First words
The Times-Post is at last able to announce that William Weston, our top international affairs reporter, will spend six weeks in Ecotopia, beginning next week.
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Wikipedia in English (2)

Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a "stable-state" ecosystem: the perfect balance between human beings and the environment. Now, twenty years later, the isolated, mysterious Ecotopia welcomes its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston. Like a modern Gulliver, the skeptical Weston is by turns impressed, horrified, and overwhelmed by Ecotopia's strange practices: employee ownership of farms and businesses, the twenty-hour work week, the fanatical elimination of pollution, mini-cities that defeat overcrowding, devotion to trees bordering on worship, a woman-dominated government, and bloody, ritual war games. Bombarded by innovative, unsettling ideas, set afire by a relationship with a sexually forthright Ecotopian woman, Weston's conflict of values intensifies-and leads to a startling climax.

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