Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand

Read the book in just a few days. Read for a variety of reasons. It is a story of a man on a lifelong quest to be the best that he could be, a man with a true planetary perspective, a man always taking on what he thought to be the most interesting projects he was capable of and ultimately a man not afraid to think really LARGE. I’ve been a follower of his since I was 14 years old and first came across “The Whole Earth Catalog”. It was 1969 and the cover alone of planet Earth did it for me. Inside the catalog I could browse for hours and be enthralled at the hippie back to the land ethos, the wide variety of tools, the recommended books and the great written pieces interspersed all over. A decade later when he introduced “Co-Evolution Quarterly” I felt, for the first time, that here was a magazine I would gladly subscribe to. When it ceased publishing I was upset ( I suppose “Wired” was he next stage). The writer focuses on his early life and family influences, his time in the military and his arrival in California in the very early sixties at a time when everything was changing fast. He was almost “on the bus”, there for the acid tests and the beginnings of the hippie movement. But all the time he remained grounded and thought for himself and was able to keep himself on his path The book explores Brand’s background in science and engineering. He was an early environmentalist, but allowed his thinking in this area to evolve. Above all, what comes across in the book is Brand’s deep desire to use his skills and intelligence for the benefit of others and the entire planet. The book is a very interesting read about a fascinating and unique man. There is a lot to learn here and a lot worth emulating in Stewart Brand.

This biography of Steward Brand a great job communicating the freewheeling atmosphere of technology, activism, environmentalism and exploration that led Brand to thrive in the communal North Beach area of San Francisco and pioneer important innovations like the Whole Earth Catalog and the Long Now Foundation that have inspired a whole lot of technologists, environmentalists and writers (Steve Jobs famously mentioned Brand and the Whole Earth Catalog in his "Stay hungry, stay foolish" exhortation at Stanford in 2005).Markoff details many of Brand's forays; into LSD, into art and photography, into Native American culture, into the Beat movement. All of these came together to create a unique iconoclast who pioneered many early aspects of technology, networking and environmentalism while never being part of the mainstream himself and not being afraid to take on the same movements he launched when he thought they were becoming too hidebound; his embrace of nuclear power is an example.The best image I have of Brand is that of a tree sending saplings out everywhere, with each sapling taking root and sprouting a whole new, unique world of its own. In many ways he exemplifies the zeitgeist of responsible stewardship of technology development and environmentalism that should be a blueprint for us as we march half-blind into the age of AI and genetic engineering. Now in his 80s and having lived on his Sausalito boat for a long time, Brand remains a one of a kind. In many ways his story is the story of America and especially California coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, and John Markoff does an excellent job recounting it.

First-rate biography of this enigmatic and influential figure whose work continues to shape our culture.

This is a decent account of the interests and pursuits of Stewart Brand, an interesting man who greatly influenced my early reading and learning via Whole Earth Catalog and Coevolutionary Quarterly. The Kindle "production" of this book, at least in its early release, is shoddy. Several dozen paragraphs were duplicated in a mangled form, making reading unpleasant. Needs to be fixed.