I read this book a couple of times long many moons ago but still must concur with those who say it's a great book. The author, John Greenway, enflamed the passions of students at his university and he claimed he was, by their lights, the campus reactionary. Alack! The students did not know that in a review of one of his early books, American Folksongs of Protest, he was described by the Soviet Appartchik reviewer as "America's most progressive folklorist." Gotta love the dichotomy! Greenway was also chummy with Woody Guthrie, Aunt Molly Jackson and a folksinger in his own right. In fine, Dylan himself even pilfered one of his songs.

The author, John Greenway, was my professor. This book is without doubt his masterpiece, his magnum opus. It takes the reader on a profound journey into the heart of Australia, explaining and teaching about Culture itself, the great driving engine of all human social organization. His chapter on religion is succinct and potent, and perceptive students will be indelibly changed by its insights. Dr. Greenway spent 15 years in the desert among the aborigines. His amusing tales of the characters he met and studied are almost mythic as described, a testimony to Greenway's powerful literary style (he was a student of Anglo-Saxon literature and folksongs, and studied under the great MacEdward Leach at the University of Pennsylvania). His storytelling ability is his strongest asset. But more important, the reader will be lifted above his own culture to see why people act as they do. I predict that this book will be republished some day and become a recognized text in cultural anthropology. Dr. Greeenway was a pioneer, and far ahead of his time.

What a great book. I'm relatively new to the protest scene and so I don't know a lot of protest songs. During the recent protest of the Hwy 55 expansion, I tried to make up my own songs but I have trouble rhyming. With the help of this book, I looked like a real cool cat perched in the top limbs of an old oak. Power to the people!

Greenway uses gonzo narrative to lambaste white guilt toward blacks, "feathered Indians," criminals, "rebellious women" and "easy ignorance in education." (P. 206) Unlike Thompson, he uses scholarship & research to do it. Very funny & replete with ironies about the 'Seventies & our most sacred national myths. There are blind spots: He never entertains the idea that cultural changes might be adaptive rather than maladaptive. Was the Empire worse than the Roman Republic, or just something different? He gets romantic about General George Patton, who treated G.I.'s like peasants because he never got over being a patrician. And he's a bit hard on signers of the Declaration of Independence for not joining Washington at Valley Forge; weren't they seniors, after all? But you can count on Greenway to make every issue one of dominance vs. submission. What remains in the mind are his admonitions that (1) one should know one's enemy, and (2) one should defeat him without humilating him. Also, that two cannot compete in the same place at the same time, whether alpha males or nations. But even this is simplistic. Dominant cultures first try to absorb indigenous populations, then enslave them, then displace them, and annihilate them only when the cultural gap is so large that they can't be used. Wonderful style; expansive vocabulary ("yark," "bogdle," "calenture"); and a mind that remembered everything he read.

It is no accident that Professor Greenway boxed in college, was an army hand-to-hand combat instructor, and the first reservist on the Boulder Police to be called when a riot was expected. Here was a fighter, though he usually used his intellect and sarcasm, who could flatten any opponent. (He was also a professor of anthropology and English, a master carpenter, chess player, and musician.) Jacket copy is almost always worthless, yet here we read a critic who states that he "would hate to be as sure of anything as Mr. Greenway is of everything." And truer statements are hard to find. Greenway writes on five subjects: American Indians (decrying revisionism and hagiography), the academy and its students ("the dumbest mob of trousered apes ever whelped"), modern feminism (using Al Capp's "women's lip" formulation), the police (in favor), and George Patton (very much in favor). I remember first reading Greenway in National Review and thinking, You CAN'T say that! Well, if such a reaction comes from, well, a reactionary, then treat yourself to this: the humorous and telling observations of a man who knew as much as Erasmus and punched as hard as Dempsey.

This book lambastes the lapses of the 'Seventies with learning, logic & irony by an anthropologist with the soul of Hunter Thompson and the politics of Rush Limbaugh.