If you can get ahold of a copy of this wonderful volume--and if you have any interest in the history of the libertarian/anarchist movement in the 20th century whatsoever--do so immediately! My copy is so dear to me that I refuse to lend it out to ANYONE!

This book is actually made up of bound actual copies of the first issues of Murray Rothbard's classic "Libertarian Forum" newsletter. Besides Rothbard's insight about the events of those years, 1968-71, it includes some wonderful analysis and revolutionary writing from Karl Hess, Jerome Tuccille, Leonard Liggio, Butler Shaffer, and many others. This stuff is priceless!

While i found the middle of the book somewhat slow (he used too much detail to reinforce his main points), the ending chapters are great. He makes a convincing case for local control over the range by people with a vested interest in the land, and against large scale technocratic solutions.

Karl Hess earned his college degrees, including a Ph.D., in ecology, economics and history. He worked in North Africa on a range rehabilitation project for two years, then spent 5 years working for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. He also taught graduate courses in public land policy at New Mexico State University. He brings learning, experience, and expertise to the subject of the western range and its management. But more importantly, he brings a deep respect for the men and women who settled the West, and for their descendants who are now being squeezed out of their heritage by their own government. The issues of western range management are complex; Karl Hess explains how rangelands have been mismanaged in the past, and how they are being mismanaged today by those charged with restoring them to a healthy condition, specifically the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service. Visions Upon the Land traces the history of the arid West -- that part of the country west of the 100th meridian -- from the Civil War through the rapid expansion of the 1870's and 1880's, and up to the reforms of the 1930's, particularly the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Left to themselves, cattlemen take good care of rangelands, Hess believes. Common sense tells them not to overgraze. There are numerous examples of ranchers' wise stewardship of the land, including the large ranches in Pahrump Valley before WWII. However, two things happened that the cattlemen could not control. One was the introduction of sheep onto the common range, the other was the arrival of settlers under the Homestead Act. Severe overgrazing was the tragic result of too many people and too many animals on too little land. The Taylor Grazing Act was not a universal remedy, but it reversed the trend of overgrazing by issuing grazing permits and leases to stockmen throughout the West. One government report stated that for the period from 1936 to 1966 "the amount of range considered to be in poor or bad condition was estimated to have declined from 58% to 33% in 1966. At the same time, the amount of fair condition range increased from 26% to 49%." Then, the 1970's brought an era of unbridled growth in government. The BLM underwent bureaucracy building that increased its budget many times over. The Bureau became insulated from responsibility for its actions, and took on an attitude of hostility toward ranchers and other "encroachers" on public lands. Hess charactarizes that attitude: "Humans are intruders to be feared, regulated, and held at bay for the sake of preserving the naturalness that remains." So what does the future hold for the western range? Karl Hess sees a continuation of the bureaucratic dictatorship the BLM holds over the land. Nonetheless, Visions Upon the Land argues for a solution that is based on the ultimate American ideal -- democracy. Hess wants to give private citizens property rights in the vast BLM administered lands. Give ordinary people an incentive to preserve the health of the land they inhabit. Allow many visions in on the decision process. The solutions Karl Hess proposes in Visions Upon the Land may seem unworkable, even farfetched. But he is the first scholar to think through the incredibly complex problems of the western range, and his theories should not be dismissed out of hand. The job of restoring democracy to the West is great, but the task begins with ideas, ideas that need to be debated and refined. Only then can action be taken.

This book had it all. As a recent college graduate in the field of solid state semiconductor electronics, this book was refreshing to read. Through out the material the author explains how the theoretical meets the real world science of semiconductors. The theories are explained in layman's terms. I plan to use the book further in my plans to develop new semiconductor chips.

I have two main gripes about this book:

1) It wasn't particularly well written -- there were reflections, within reflections, and all sorts of lengthy non-essential asides -- especially in the earlier chapters. Ironically, several of these annoying interludes occurred when the author was talking about what it takes to be a good writer!

2) The author stuck me as somewhat hypocritical. How can you be a libertarian as well as a major proponent of the bill of rights and yet be an unapologetic collaborator with the HUAC & Joe McCarthy? It seems to me pretty hypocritical to be a rabid anti-communist and participating in the ruin of people who were utilizing their 1st Amendment Rights, but expressing a view that the author just happened to disagree with.

There were hints at real humanity and a number of interesting ideas, but I had hoped for more stuff about his time in WV, his refusal to pay taxes, his interest in self-sufficiency, etc. I'll try to find "Dear America" and see if it has more of what I was looking for.

In 1976 I had the opportunity to write a review for Karl Hess' "Dear America," and this new autobiography contains much of the same material covered in that first autobiography. I had hoped for a more personal glimpse into his family life but strangely only about two sentences are devoted to his first marriage which produced two sons. It was odd that Mr. Hess could not even mention his first wife's name. His relationship with his sons is also largely ignored. These omissions, together with little or no discussion of such historical figures such as Nixon, Reagan, Ford, and Carter and their respective policies, made the book less than it could have been. HOWEVER, "Dear America" is out of print! Also, one must keep in mind that this book was put together while Mr. Hess was suffering from his terminal heart disease and was basically unfinished at the date of his death. His son, Karl Hess, Jr. has performed a labor of love by getting this book out on the market. It is a treat to read about Mr. Hess' early days and I believe that portion of the book was completed while his health was fairly good. I also enjoyed his discussions about his conversion from the right to the left and how the right and left have much in common. I consider Karl Hess to be one of unsung heroes of this century's political scene - a thinking political and moral man - all at the same time! I had hoped for his observations and his comments on the Nixon regime, Watergate, Reaganomics, etc. but I am still content with this autobiography and recommend it to anyone interested in Karl Hess, a 20th century Thoreau.

Karl Hess's journey through the 20th Century takes the reader through the intellectual development of a self-taught genius. His optimistic brand of community life is a model for the 21st century.

As someone with a great interest in seeing communities like that described in Community Technologies develop, I was dissapointed in Hess' approach to the subject. Much of the book was a Wendell Berry style argument about the need for change in the American lifestyle, though Hess differs from Berry in that he is not as eloquent and thinks more urbanly than Berry. What I hoped for was a detailed account of WHAT happened, HOW they made it happened, and WHY it didn't work. Not nearly enough space was devoted to those issues, so it was difficult to draw my own conclusions.