This is bound to become a provocative & well-debated title; Roszak takes a broad-based series of well-aimed salvos at the conservative "Cassandras" who seem to be confusing the historical elderly dependencies of the past as indicative of what the new elderly composed of the aging baby-boomer generation will become. Nonsense, says Roszak, who argues persuasively that unlike their parents and grandparents, the baby-boomers will compose a revolutionary new social, economic and political force to be reckoned with in their seniority.

Given the considerable evidence of the new prosperity the "sixties" generation enjoys, and the likelihood that they will increasingly enjoy better health, more free time, and better opportunities to energetically express themselves than any previous elderly population in history, Roszak sees them as becoming a potent new force in American society, a force that can be usefully harnessed to the benefit of contemporary culture. Given the sheer numbers of the "new" elderly posed to find themselves at loose ends in the next 20 years, and the fact that the demographics of contemporary society are being altered in favor of greater proportions of older citizens (the so-called "graying of America"), it is hard to argue with much of what Roszak describes.

Certainly, as a recent early retiree myself, I can attest to the veracity of many of the points he makes in terms of my own situation. At age 53, I hardly see myself as slowing down, or as continuing my former ways in terms of concentrating on a career based primarily on what one ordinarily refers to as economic considerations. In short, I am looking forward to greater involvement in the community, in making substantial personal contributions in terms of time and energy to social issues I am concerned with, and to being more of a resource for family and friends. According to the author, I will not be alone. Tens of millions of my post-war baby-boom generation will soon be smiling beside me.

Of course, many critics point out that Roszak has made a long, illustrious career out of chronicling the baby-boomer generation, and that many of his previous notions weren't accurate. Yet for anyone taking the time & energy to read either "The Making of a Counterculture" or "Where the Wasteland Ends" will find that his writing was perceptive, prescient, & insightful. Here, too, he debunks the ideas of conservative nay-sayers like Peter Peterson ("Gray Dawn"), who claim the coming crush of retiring baby-boomers will mean hard times for younger Americans in particular & a troubled economic burden for America in general.

"Bosh!" claims Roszak, who points out that the new elderly have more material resources, are better educated, & are much more likely to continue to be gainfully employed after retirement than were their parents or grandparents. Indeed, given the booming economy associated with the digital revolution & the fact that many baby-boomers have unique expertise in the information industry, the "sixties" generation is much more likely to be in a favorable economic situation that any preceding generation of elder citizens. In fact, Roszak believes that they will be of continuing assistance to their children and grandchildren in helping them to continue to live the 'good life' they have become accustomed to.

Finally, the author provides a great deal of evidence and logic in arguing that the coming new generation swell of elderly citizens will be potentially the single most positive social, political, and economic force of the new millennium. This is a slim but significant book, one that provides a number of perceptive cultural insights (e.g. Roszak's description of contemporary youth lost to apathetic and petty diversions in the electronic arcades our culture is devolving into is terrific), & offers a number of ideas for serious discussion & contemplation. I heartily recommend it for any serious student of the social scene. Enjoy!

Theodore Roszak's writing is just as inspiring as it was in the 60's with "The Making of the Counter Culture." This man has his thoughts honed in on the pulse of our generation---the baby boomers. No one chronicles the trends of our generation better.

His thesis that as the baby boomers grow old the political spectrum will move to the left is fascinating and gives hope to this reader. His thesis is borne out by the fact that more of us are going to be dependent on the "entitlements" programs of the federal government. He goes on to postulate that because the Republicans traditionally oppose these programs, the body politic will move significantly into the Democratic party and in favor of more social programs.

Theodore Roszak has brought hope to this reader that we can look forward to a more progressive tomorrow. In spite of current trends like "charter schools" ,"vouchers", Kenneth Starr etc.... there is hope for a new tomorrow!

This book is by far the most seminal book one can read in attempting to get an accurate and unvarnished understanding of the sixties counterculture; the social and historical reasons for its rise, its intellectual underpinnings, and the way in which its actions were informed and indeed propelled by its unique constellation of integrating values into a cultural ethos.

Recently the counterculture has been viciously attacked, intellectually trashed and intentionally trivialized by a series of books and articles by mainstream neoconservatives who wish to discredit the counterculture once and for all by blaming it and the "permissiveness" it spawned for the manifest ills the mainstream society has actually engendered through the evolution of its own corrupted, nonrepresentative, and nondemocratic political process. Many ignorant youthful authors have succumbed to attributing fallacious ideas and notions of this ethos in a way that is not only inaccurate and disingenuous, but which serves to trivialize the quite serious cultural critique it comprised.

All that is set aside here. Remember, this book was written more than 30 years ago, even as the counterculture was rising, so it is very much a observational history, one done at ground zero of the demonstrations, sit-ins, when the tumult and strident calls for radical new solutions rang clear, and the heady air of nascent social and intellectual revolution was in the air.

Here one finds the counterculture placed in its proper context, and not just discussed 'en passant' as the demonized triage of sex, drugs, and rock and roll'. One can hardly understand the sixties in such simplistic terms, and Roszak helps one to understand the complex welter of social, economic, and political factors that led to its emergence. In its essence the counterculture was a social and political reaction to the hypocrisy of the mainstream materialistic culture from which it sprang, and as sociologist Philp Slater has commented elsewhere, most of the individual elements of the value system of the counterculture stem from values the mainstream culture in fact claims to hold but actually does not practice and employ.

This, then, is book with remarkable insight, perspective, and historical verve. Rosazak nails quite accurately the tensions, problems and contradictions associated with the rise of the counterculture and the innate problems its continued existence eventually portended for the materialistic mainstream culture. Of course, as history shows us, the sixties ethos was flattened by the overwhelming onslaught of the establishment and the Ohio National Guard, and the political and social ethos of the counterculture melded into the domain of increasingly isolated private and personal philosphies of hippies being assimilated into the mainstream.

The fact that its ethos is now blamed for much of the discontent and confusion of contemporary America is a likely result of what happens when one tries to merge antagonistic ideas and notions into a cultural system that is inconsistent with its own. This is a wonderful book, and one needs to read before the victors of those fractious times so revise the official version of the history of the 1960s that those of us who were there will no longer recognize it.

This book offers a highly detailed examination of the relationship of the late 1960's counterculture to cutting-edge intellectual ideas of the same era; Roszak discusses Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown, among others, in great detail and shows very lucidly how their ideas influenced intellectual and political movements on college campuses in both America and Europe. Roszak's prescience here is amazing, considering that he wrote this book in 1967-68, while the phonemena he discusses were still unfolding! It would be interesting if Roszak were to write a response to his own book today, considering how the counterculture of the early 1990's has been so rapidly devoured by the mainstream--Roszak foresaw the possibility of this happening to the 1960's counterculture, but it took far longer then than it has now. Roszak's ruminations on the absurdity of the Alternative Nation would be welcome with this reader!

The Voice Of The Earth: An Exploration Of Ecopsychology by Theodore Roszak is a compelling and thoughtful exploration of the interconnection between psychology, ecology, science, and nature. Individual chapters address such issues as the true essence of mother earth/Gaia, Psychology vs. Cosmology vs. Ecology, and much more in this serious transcendental address of clashing ideologies of the planet we know best. The Voice Of The Earth is strongly recommended for readers with an interest in the philosophy of nature and the impact of human psychology upon the ecological environmental.

In its first edition this was one of the best books of the decade, for me. One of his main arguments is that for about three hundred years the main political agenda in the West was the struggle for democracy, freedoms, political equality. That struggle continues in the rest of the world, but in the West a new struggle is emerging, which will dominate society and politics for the coming centuries. This is the struggle for personal meaning: now that we have affluence and rights, we are turning to what makes our lives worth living.

He quotes an early and halting expression of the struggle for political rights from the Putney Debates, in the English Civil War (mid 1600s) - he has beautiful quotes from this. This somewhat incoherent desire for democracy, expressed by lower class people, was reviled by many educated people; but 100 years later the intelligentsia adopted its agenda in the American, French Revolutions etc. Now, he says, the Recovery Movement and similar expressions of desire for personal growth are reviled by many educated people as vulgar 'me first' or 'I'm a victim' self obsessions. But he says this longing for personal growth is a powerful force that will change our societies.

There is much more - his argument that psychotherapy is an urban movement, but that we can never heal ourselves until we reconnect with nature. Or his explanation of the anthropic principle - and his scepticism about the role of random factors in evolution - both of which suggest at least that we should feel more at home in our universe, and not imagine we humans are merely insignificant, randomly generated accidents. Whether he's right about the this I don't know, but it's sure encouraging to read it. There's plenty of food for thought and hope in this book. A good book to read with it is Robert Wright's Non Zero.

Roszak analyzes the single vision philosophy of the Judeo-Christian tradition and its descendant, science. These two seemingly opposing philosophies are seen as the foundation of the creation of the dominant technocracy which is poisoning the planet and alienating manking. His analyses of Blake, Wordsworth, and Goethe are also interesting and erudite. The amazing feat of this book is that he broadens his analysis of the Counter Culture to the foundational roots of the problem. An amazing, life-changing book, which will make you re-evaluate "progress" and the alienating powers of our technocratic age. It should be required reading for all philosophy and science classes.

This is the first and only book by Roszak that I have read, but it may be one of the most enjoyable and disturbing tales I've ever taken the time to experience. Roszak slowly builds our relationship to every character, then watches us wince as things go horribly wrong. As a movie-fanatic it was impossible for me not to love how he stiches real movie lore with his unreal concoctions. You too will find yourself drawn, as if hypnotically entranced by the flickering play of light, down into the murky depths of film legends and our own perverted psyches. His characters are both engaging and impressively human to a fault, whether they be his own creations, or film legends. I found myself wanting to go rent movies that did exsist (Maltese Falcion, Citizen Kane) to find the Max Castle touches of darkness and shadow-play. After reading this book, it will give you a new respect for the movies you watch. If you can find this book, read it and pass it on to as many people as possible. I cry to the ears that will probably not hear to reprint this book, and have it made into one hell of a film.

...

Being a fan of films of all kinds, i was attracted to this book that calls itself "a secret history of the movies".

I was looking forward to a clever tale of subliminal persuasion and hooded figures lurking in the shadows behind the scenes in the studios. What I got was so much more. This is a fascinating read on so many levels. What starts out as a detailed memoir of one man's love of films, quickly turns into a study of the technology that makes the films possible, and then into a tale about what can happen when that technology is used to its fullest potential by those who understand the mesmerising effect that movies can produce. We travel with Jonathan Gates as he uncovers secret techniques used by an early pioneer in film, Max Castle, to "enhance" the impact of his films. We watch as he goes deeper and deeper and deeper still into a conspiracy that seems to stretch back as far as Christianity and earlier. We learn about how, in skilled hands, a thing as seemingly innocent as a Shirley Temple dance number can be transformed into an instrument of evil. We learn how fascination for the morbid can open doors for more of such things in the future; and most of all, as we find ourselves just as mesmerised and fascinated with the story as Jonathan is with Castle, how each of us is just as guilty as the characters that we have grown to dislike within the story.

This is much much more than "a secret history of the movies". This is a documentary on the degradation of standards, values, taste, and life itself. This book raises some very interesting questions about things that many of us take for granted, such as the process of making a film, and the quality of the art we are willing to accept. It raises interesting questions about where the line should be drawn between art and trash, and how where we choose to draw that line can potentially mean the choice between life or death for our entire species.

Sound crazy? It is.. but it might be just crazy enough to be true.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's such a shame that it's been out of print for so long.

I came upon this book when it was first published at a signing by the author at a now defunct Berkeley cinema that was showing a trio of early horror films (Caligari, Nosferatu, the Black Cat). What a perfect backdrop to the story, which I hadn't as yet read, made even more sinister by Prof. Roszak's introduction to the films and his warning to watch the corners of the screen for the subliminal messages, hidden in light and shadow, from the nefarious Max Castle.

Max seems to be modeled after the father of film noir cinematography, Karl Freund. The occult ambiance of German Expressionism filmaking of which Castle (aka Freund) was a part under UFA, pervades the novel Flicker, setting an ominous mood thoughout.

The concpiracy of who really controls film and filmaking should not be even hinted at in a review. Suffice it to say that it bears the flavor of Eco, Pynchon and Robert Anton Wilson.

This is a fun read and will get you to want to find out more about the historic themes that udnerly the presmise of the conspiracy.

An eminately scientific book. Uses phenomenological and imaginally accurate approaches to its topic, and offers rarely quoted material from psychoanalysis which will provoke irritated responses from those supporting the "accepted canon" of psychoanalytic literature. Little known (though accurate) citations of Freud and Jung broaden the discussion of psychology to include environment, to the chagrin of the traditional psychoanalytic establishment which gives little value to environmental influences on psychological health. Views presented here describe how an empathic relation with the environment is being dumbly, and politically, grandstanded as a regression to "the noble savage". Contrary to this "regressive" view the authors offer a vision in which person and environment are mutually effected. The book will prove its value with its revolutionary conceptual vision, and its practical application of ideas.

This is a highly informative book. It tells about people's different points of view on the highly volatile and up-and-coming field of ecopsychology. This book is a great source of information and knowledge of the field as well as it's a pretty easy read. I used this book as a jumping off point for research for my undergraduate thesis. If you are interested in environmental issues and psychology, read this book.

Assembled here are some of the leading lights of ecopsychology, with papers and excerpts from the books they've written: Roszak himself, Aizenstat, Hillman, Gomes, Glendinning, and on and on. A rare collection of important voices.

The idea of ecopsychology is to open up awareness to the unheard voice of the Earth. "Animism" is a 19th century assumption that assumes the world lives only to the degree we project into it. The authors here realize that animism is a reductionistic and outdated concept that only serves to justify the ongoing rape and dematerialization of the natural world--a world that in fact projects her presence into those of us who can learn to hear her.

This is not a back-to-nature project but a necessity if we are to preserve what's left of the Earth from our greed, haste, and the global warming of the psyche endemic to a society of rapacious and immature consumers too bent on private advantage to do what our ancestors did for a million years of history and prehistory: recognize and respect her personhood. And today, we can do so with all our critical faculties intact and a bit of help from green technics.

The Cult of Information is a heartfelt but in the end unsatisfying book, The cause for this disappointment can be found in the book's subtitle which contains the phrase 'And The True Art of Thinking'. Roszak is deeply concerned that the computer is commonly used as a model of the brain. He is concerned by the importance that some give to computer skills. He is concerned that the time taken to learn computer skills lessens the amount of time children have to learn how to live in a truly human environment. He is concerned that people will begin to think that they can only act in the strictly procedural way that computers act. He is concerned that the computer brain model will make people believe that they can only aspire to the rudimentary types of interactions that computers are capable of.

Roszak spends most of his book creating examples to illustrate his concerns. However the book would have been better is Roszak had a better idea of what human thinking was really about. Instead of many many declarations that human thought is intuitive and impossible to explain, a review of the brain mechanisms that have been discovered to be behind thought, learning, emotion etc. would have been much better.

Roszak would have discovered that far being purely procedural devices, new models of computer activity are now in widespread use. These models were developed because the lack of capability that the procedural model exhibits was recognized by specialists in computer science and artificial intelligence. Indeed the same criticism that Roszak gives of computers not being capable of truly fitting itself for detailed interaction in a human environment was one of the reasons that these new models were developed. New 'situated' models of computer behavior are designed from the beginning to fit themselves in to the world of humanity. They are designed as an attempt to do the routine things such as driving a car, mowing a lawn etc. that Roszak says that computers are incapable of. That these are very difficult tasks for a computer to do and that true success in this area has not yet been achieved does not deny the fact that the attempt is bing made.

Roszak seems to have a very narrow view on what human interaction is about. He does not attempt to describe it clearly. His understanding of Marshall Mcluhan is definitely lacking. He makes a statement about Marshall Mcluhan's views on television that is clearly incorrect. His lack of understanding of human activities is shown by his confounding of activities that Mcluhan would have called 'hot' and 'cool'. For Roszak, learning is a hot occupation. Learning is a matter of solitary thought whose goal is develop to a private understanding. Roszak never seems to describe a 'cool' interaction that takes place publicly and whose goal is sharing and accomplishment.

Roszak's book is worth reading for the depth and sincerity of its concerns. It would have been better if the computer and modern forms of computer mediated interactions would have been describe doing, were more than a cartoon outline. As Mcluhan and many others have demonstrated the computer is part of a technological development that is changing the way people interact and so changes their view of themselves. Some of these changes are for the good and others are most definitely for the ill. Mcluhan and Innis, years before Roszak, recognized this and founded an insightful literature which explores this area. Roszak describes his book as a treatise. However it is more of an emotional cry in opposition to the ill effects that computers and computer mediated communication can have on humanity. Read it to understand the concerns that the neo-Luddites, as Roszak describes himself, have about technology. Read Mcluhan and others to understand these effects.

Roszak bursts the bubble of marketing hype that touts information technology as an all-powerful force that can do anything for business or society. Those of us involved in consulting, communications, product development and CRM can benefit from this perspective, so that we do not overpromise. This neo-luddite is not opposed to technology, but he wants us to know its limitations and its effect on our humanity. The book was prescient when it was written a decade ago, and today its lessons seem all the more important. My only criticism is I wish the author would offer constructive suggestions for those of us who have to make decisions on information technology. He rips down our facade, but does not tell us how to rebuild.

This book is a thoughtful and thought-provoking examination of both the meaning of and the consequences associated with the rising computer information cult within contemporary society. Roszak is a skilled writer and an even more perceptive thinker. He quickly disposes of the contemporary idea equating data or information, on the one hand, with knowledge and wisdom, on the other hand. He despairs of the notion that technological progress is an unalloyed blessing, and provides a lot of supporting documentation illustrating that for all those capabilities we gain through the use of digital technology, for example, we also lose important capabilities and perspectives.

According to Roszak, we have now come to almost rely on exclusively rational,"logical", and quantifiable methods of understanding everything around us, often to the detriment of ignoring more traditional and time-honored methods of knowing. This, in turn, leads to a very narrow perspective of how it is that the world operates, one devoid of anything not quantitative, anything comprised of more "qualitative" means of observation. Thus, to the digitally oriented logical and rational mind, anything not disposed to undertanding through calculation and the scientific method simply is not real. Furthermore, he shows us, such digital computing techniques creates as many problems as it solves.

He fears for good reason that we are falling into a hyperbolized and superficial culture where we have come to completely depend on scientific rationalism as it is depicted by the media, and that this creates a conundrum we cannot escape from, since many of the problems associated with modern society stem from this increasingly exlusively scientific and rational approach toward problem-solving.

As with other contemporary critics of the new Digital Intelligence cult like social critic Neil Postman, Roszak argues for a more comprehensive perspective , one that places the tools of computer technology at the behest of a more broad-based intelligence, one that recognizes that there is a whole range of ways of knowing and understanding that those contained in programming code. This is a provocative and thought-indicing book. I enjoyed and learned from it, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching a superior intellect at work, and who also appreciated the thread of a finely-hewn intellectual argument. Enjoy!

In Mr. Roszak's book there is no question who the good guy is, and there is no moral confusion to challenge the reader. He sets up a series of reprehensible, cardboard characters and smacks them about with sarcastic glee.

However, that's okay. In fact, that's more than okay, it's necessary. We "liberals" spend too much time worrying about the gray areas in between. Sometimes a person has to simply react, and this book is clearly Mr. Roszak's visceral reaction to religious intolerance. Bravo, I say. Many on the right revel in savaging straw men, there's nothing wrong with giving it back to them now and again.

I found this book fun much the same way "Ditto Heads" find Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly fun. It offered me a few hours of unadulterated fascist bashing unburdened by an opposing viewpoint. I didn't come away from it with a more nuanced view of the various sides of the "culture war." Rather, I got some laughs and, I'll admit, a few moments of smug satisfaction. Like chocolate, it can't be your main source of sustenance, but it's a nice treat every now and then.

I vaguely remember seeing one novel, "Pontifex," a long time ago, but I've only known Theodore Roszak as a non-fiction author, from "The Making of A Counter Culture" and "Where the Wasteland Ends" to "Ecopsychology" and "America, the Wise." I didn't know he'd been writing novels all along, and this is his fifth. Judging by its merits, I've been missing something.

The subtitle/blurb is "A Wickedly Funny Novel about an Outraged Liberal Trapped in a Fundamentalist Bible College." So in this "high concept" (which is mogolspeak for "obvious cliché") era in which the trailer is the movie, I'm expecting a lot of fish-out-of-water scenes. This novel is a lot better than that. Daniel Silverman (who is gay as well as Jewish and liberal) is a more subtle character, more individualized, who finds himself forced to confront some transcendent issues, even if he'd rather not. Without spoiling the story, I can say I was impressed by how he changes within the main action (though to become more of himself, so to speak) which is itself not as predictable as the title and blurb led me to believe.

This is the kind of contemporary novel that should be part of our popular fiction today. It deals conscientiously with important social issues but it's full of humanity and it's very entertaining, with elements of suspense, humor, and refreshly honest intellectual debate.

Sure, there's enough irony and puckish literary allusion for David Lodge fans, maybe even for devotees of Delmore Schwartz. But even the fundamentalist characters have dimension, life and a weird sort of sympathy. The all-too typical bicoastal portrait of the frozen and hearty Midwest, and all those tall, toothy folks who actually say, "you betcha," yields after the first pages to a more nuanced though no less paranoid portrayal. It's just that the paranoia gets more and more justified, even as the characters get more and more human. The exegesis of fundamentalist beliefs is thorough and thoroughly frightening, but Silverman's suppression of hysteria for an anthropological analytical calm is both effective in engaging these doctrines, and funny in a spooky, edgy way, so as readers we may find ourselves freaked by our own suppressed hysteria.

A couple of Roszak's previous novels have been opted for film and you can see why---even in this era when it's extremely hard to get a good script made, especially if it's about contemporary American reality not involving serial killers, his writing is cinema-sympathetic. And in this novel there's a terrific central scene that plays awfully well in the cinema of the mind.

Anyway, there should be more novels like this one, and this one should be read. Now I am going to read previous Roszak novels? You betcha.

Be careful of picking up this book-- it might just make your head explode. Although it is a droll, well-paced farce there are passages that did indeed set my heart pounding. I can only recommend this book to you if you believe:

1) You have an open mind
2) Homosexuality is acceptable between consenting adults
3) Women should have control over their own bodies
4) Evolution is an incontrovertible, scientific theory
5) The Bible was written by men

If you are not comfortable with these ideas as well as the idea that men and women should lead joyful, spirited lives filled with compassion with others, then I am afraid this book will disturb and anger you. As for me, it is good to know that I am not the only secular humanist left in this country.

The reviewer before me states that this book is mostly just silly, and yes that sums this book up for me too. The premise is good as is the first 100 pages or so before a downhill spiral into overstated feminism that is trumpeted rather than suggested and what is pretty much nonesense. The book becomes trashy to say the least, and full of inconsistancies obvious to anyone who has read the original.

Lets have an example. The book it says in the 'about the author' section was written by a Frankenstein scholar who has taught courses on the novel. If this is so how is it that he conveniently forgot the existance of Elizabeth's little foster brother William, murdered by the monster, or Justine the nursemaid wrongfully accused of his murder? These characters are simply missing.

It says on the cover "The shocking tale Mary Shelley dared not write', I didn't find it shocking, shockingly bad perhaps and Mary would never dare write such a bad novel. It strikes me as a book the author was writing anyway before he decided to change the names of the characters and stick the monster in the final 20 pages so he could cash in on the name. I would suggest reading 'Frankenstein Unbound' by Brian Aldyss, a far more erudite and entertaining retelling of the story :)

I think that although this book is marketed as a prequel or retelling of "Frankenstein" and the author said that this is the book Mary Shelley would have written today, I would disagree. It's not written in a similar manner -- it shifts between her diary and a commentary or interpretation based on the view of her contemporaries. Although the horror aspect is still contained in "Memoirs" it is a horror that focuses on the technological worship of impersonal science. The horror also may be the sexual, psychological, political, physical, and spiritual oppression of women, all of which are explored in some manner in this book. Elizabeth's sexual explorations and themes of "witchcraft" may put some readers off of this book. My personal favorite part of this book was the ecofeminist idea that oppression of nature can be linked to oppression of women -- in other words, that science objectifies and dehumanizes both the natural world and women. These themes might seem a little "out there" to some readers, but may be fascinating to fans of women's studies or liberal minded folk. Certainly well-written.

This is a novel that works in amny levels. Of course, it is indeed, a masterful gothic. A bouquet to Mary Shelley and a very modern horror story, but beyond these layers it is also a study of the secrets of the women at a time when they were best thought of "in the dark"... and this is a dark story all right.

For those of use who longed for more about the enigmathic and tragic Elizabeth Lavenza-Frankenstein here is a book that won't be easily read, but neither will it be easily forgotten.

This book is another in the postmod or feminist genre which tries to argue that notions of 'truth', 'objectivity' and 'universality'--indicative of scientific knowledge--are to be questioned. Why these notions are to be questioned is due to the assumption that the knowledge, theories and presuppositions held by scientists (who historically, and at present, are predominantly male), have been pervaded by socio-cultural biases and in the case of gender, by a male gender bias. It's not that males outnumber females in the scientific establishment, but that theories, concepts, hypotheses, research directions and even presuppositions are completely pervaded by a male gender psychological bias; a bias that, according to feminists, gets established in the male at the pre-Oedipal phase of development. The male--having to make a separate break with the mother--acquires a "separate self" with traits that reflect that separation: autonomous, separate, isolated, self-determining, rigid, insensitive, competitive, aggressive, objective, etc. For females, the separation is different in that traits like, intimacy, emotion, influence of Other, compassion, community, sensitivity, nurturing, receptivity, sympathy--what is called the "self-in-relation" develops.

Where the author sees male traits biasing the investigation into the origin of matter is the whole notion of classical atomism; a reductionist programme of searching for the fundamental building blocks of nature. He notes that feminists see a striking correspondence between atomism and the psychological persona of the stereotypical male. These traits supposedly pre-filter and bias how they see and generate suppositions and theories about the basic stuff of the world. So atoms are then seen as separate, autonomous, individual, other, inanimate, cold, non-relational, solid, fundamental objects whose mechanical motions in the spacial void are subject to impersonal and universal laws. What male scientists declare are universal and objective are really projections of their own male-based, biased unconscious.

Roszak makes a further case for his claims by showing that recent developments in physics and mathematics (chaos theory, complexity, emergence and quantum mechanics) have overturned the notion of the classical atom (which never existed in the first place according to him) and have gone beyond the reductionist programme of trying to reveal nature's most fundamental units. These new developments are part of the recent sea-change occurring in the sciences where 'deep community,' 'relatedness,' 'complexity,' 'communication,'--all stereotypical feminine characteristics--are behind these new non-reductive fields of inquiry.

Here are some problems with the book's arguments. First off, virtually all the new developments that the author cites as part of that paradigm shift in the sciences such chaos theory, complexity, and emergence or even quantum mechanics, have been single-handedly authored by men.

Secondly, seeing a correspondence between atomism and the supposed male persona does not establish causation. It does not follow that because the scientific enterprise is supposedly 'stereotypically' male that theories of matter will also be 'stereotypically male'. Atomism arose to try to answer the problem about how small stuff could be continually divided; it had nothing to do with being macho. Atomism was one of a number of theories of matter that a few Greeks held to be true; whereas, a much greater number of Greek philosophers had different and incompatible theories to atomism.

Thirdly, the classical atom did exist and was necessary in the explanation behind Dalton's theory of quantitative chemistry, Boyle's law, Bernoulli's kinetic theory of gases, Clerk Maxwell's contributions to thermodynamics Clausius' atomic theory of heat and Boltzmann's statistical mechanics. In 1905, Einstein explained Brownian motion by assuming that a large number of atoms--colliding with pollen grains--made them move about randomly. Yet Einstein developed the quintessential relational and complex theory called general relativity where time, space, energy and mass are all interrelated. Newton, a devout classical atomist, created a theory that is an exemplar of relatedness and complexity where everything is attracted to everything else: universal gravitation. Faraday developed the concept of the electromagnetic field (and speculated that all phenomena are interrelated) and Clerk Maxwell gave this electromagnetic field its mathematical formalism. Mendeleev ordered atoms by increasing atomic number and in a periodic manner.

Lynn Margulis and Barbara McClintock are cited as examples of cooperation, communication and empathy in biology. But it is a cliche to say that men see competition and women see cooperation. One could find many examples to the contrary in science. And saying that women who see competition have adopted the male gender bias in their respective field is simply ad hoc explaining away of evidence to the contrary (the footnote about female sociobotanists). In biology, one can find as many examples of male biologists seeing cooperation as competition. Reciprocal altruism, ESS strategies, kin selection, group selectionism, biogeography, ecology, prisoner's dilemma strategy, etc., are all concepts originated by men. There are as many women Darwinists as there are male Darwinists.

On page 132, the author reverses his position by noting that the history of science has been an attempt to search ever deeper into the various domains of nature where we are finding an increasing complexity, subtlety and rich set of relationships. I would say this reads not unlike a process of learning how to read, play chess, or learn chemistry, etc. where the subject starts by learning the letters, the 'atoms' of the discipline then larger 'words', followed by still larger complexes and behavior. If this is so, then gender bias is irrelevant as it applies to the notion of atomism and science. The only sea-change in the sciences is the move to the complexity level in understanding nature. If physics was women-dominated, I would say that it would go through the same stages of theorizing and experimentation--starting from the four elements, to atoms, to leptons and quarks.

Sometimes the book reads like one big indictment against the scientific enterprise--especially when it comes to environmental destruction. But all these accusations are misplaced as the author repeatedly refers to the application of science, not science proper. Frankenstein (mentioned throughout the book) may be a critique about applying science; but it says absolutely *nothing* about science.

In this book, one of the best I have ever read, Roszak helps us see how we shape our own lives, our relationships, and our collective future, and how science was formed and how it shapes our lives in its image ... and he does all this in an easy-to-read, non-technical way. Indeed, his approach is unique. He has taught Frankenstein to college kids for 30 years, as a metaphor that predicted and described the shadow side of where we stand today. He uses that gothic horror story of a mad scientist to show how it presciently described modern science ... and from there he shows the next steps we and science can and must take, to go beyond Frankenstein's modern counterpart, Dr. Strangelove, by integrating the feminine relationship aspects of reality with science's vaunted worldview of utter objectivity and isolated particles. All this, he sets into incredibly accessible form, weaving it into the story of the trip he and his wife took to Switzerland to see where Mary Shelley, summering with Percy and Lord Byron, wrote Frankenstein ... and weaving in simple explanations of the strange discoveries and worldviews of modern physics by the (coincidence? ) that exactly there, where Frankenstein conceived his monster, now stands CERN, the European center for subatomic research. Add together Frankenstein, the feminist critique of modern science, four centuries of history (Roszak is a History professor), and a personal travel tale, and, alchemically, he creates a stunning clarification of our past and present and a clear map of our possible future.