Satin, who now edits an extraordinary political newsletter out of DC, made his first stab in this book at a "grand scale" assessment of what ails the human species. More importantly, he made a valiant attempt to understand how a new person-centered and planetary-conscious politics could heal the damaged psyche and stimulate creative action. And he descibed, in some detail, what that politics would look like. The book was so potent that a political movement began to form around it, taking shape in the New World Alliance. While Satin might be embarrased today to read what he considered then to be the "essence of politics", it is still a pretty powerful document worth reviewing for some potent ideas applicable to our precarious situation today.

Although this is a dated volume that deserves a publisher's reprint with the author's update, Satin comes quite far here from where he started with his prior book "New Age Politics". Satin has a real eye for what makes thhe culture and polity tick -- and he uses that sixth sense to get at what ails our collective governance of ourselves and each other. By taking an apporach which gets beyond left and right and which "creates new options", and by focusing on what works in the real world (using real life examples of politcal and social action that is often unnoticed but still effective) Satin does us all a great service here. He helps to highlight what's been missing from the political scense for so long, and then lays out contcrete remedies. Good swtuff.

Fior those born after 1975 who have no real grasp, in the gutt, of the wrenching choices young American males often made when they faced the draft, and sometimes went off to Canada, this is as good a book as one can find. It's contemporary relevance is quite limited, except as a window onto the past. Mark Satin is a prolific writer whose more recent books are extraordinary in their grasp of the underlying politics of the American scene and psyche. But this book, even with its special place as a valuable memoir, has limited value beyond historial reflection by the reader.