Review of: The Last Whole Earth Catalog: access to tools [Spring 1971 issue]

The Whole Earth Catalog became something of an institution. It took all the hard work out of researching and sourcing useful books and tracking down distributors; which back in the late 60s and 70s meant knowing a friendly and well informed book shop owner, or making lots of phone calls and chasing down leads on your own. I know. I did it myself!
These books were a hub for the 'Good Life' generation. The place you came to find out how to do everything from making North American Indian moccasins, to keeping your Volkswagen alive!
All you had to do was select what you needed from any one of the 2,100 listings. Post off your cheque. Then wait a week or two for your items to be posted out (if you lived in the U.S.), or a few months wait (for surface mail to the U.K.).

This issue (called 'The Last' because they stopped their entire business of researching the Catalog in May 1971 - permanently. or, so they thought) also includes:

'Think Little' article on the Environmental Movement. By Wendell Berry.

Jarfalla: City of the Future.

4 Changes: Choōfō - which appears to be Gary Snyder's finished article; the draft of which appeared in September 1969's Difficult But Possible: Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog. (See my LT review for that issue)

Steps in Chinese Wok-Frying

Some of a hand written letter by Ken Kesey.

A five page article on the WEC sponsored 'Hunger Show' game 'Lifeboat Earth'.

Making it With Rock (Re-print of article that appeared in the Berkley Barb, April 4, 1969)

A reprint from ALLOY (Spring 1969) of the four day event near La Luz, New Mexico (Thursday March 20th - 23rd),

Divine Right's Bus, Urge - by Gurney Norman

...as well as articles ranging from home birth and the art of breastfeeding, to death and dying.

In addition, many of the reviews include a lot of good information (even some diagrams too) Certainly enough to wet the apatite for more.

n.b.
The Last Whole Earth Catalog combines both the CATALOG and the SUPPLEMENT (previously sold separately) into one volume for the first time.

The Last Whole Earth Catalog was later expanded over two volumes (making this one in essence Vol.I) with the introduction of The Whole Earth Epilog (see my other review) acting as Volume II, and starting from pg. 449 where the LWEC leaves off.

The Last Whole Earth Catalog was fully updated in September 1973; and received another major update in the Spring of 1975, which included some additional articles and a slightly different cover design. ( )

Gosh, what a flash from the past. I spent many an hour in the early days reading from this book, randomly picking pages and carrying on until I got tired out.

I don't necessarily remember doing many of things in the book, but it certainly made all of us "back in the day" want to go and change the world, a little at a time.

Did we? It's hard to know.

-before the internet, before Google, this is where we went to learn about all the important things
-I owned and read and reread many sections of several editions
-great fun, useful, far-reaching
-thankfully, not the last one either
--Earlier, even before I learned to read, when I was growing up in a small town in Idaho in the 1940s & 50s, there were the Sears Roebuck & the Montgomery Ward Catalogs, which were learning tools for me. They were full of descriptions, pictures, drawings of the things of life, things to buy, things useful or frivolous.
The Whole Earth Catalogs had those useful and frivolous things too, but also, books! Books and ideas and possibilities and opinions and advice. It filled a need in ways that nothing else in its time did for me. ( )

One of the three or four most important books in my life. I own several copies of several editions. If we survive and prosper as a species for more than a millenium, people will remember this book as a critical contribution to that survival.

Liked this book when young (before 1974) ( )