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that was opposed by the counter-culture, not least because of their
use in Cold War strategy and tactics. One aspect of counter-cultural
thinking was also resolutely anti-technological, advocating instead
prelapsarian back-to-basics lifestyles. But, on another level, the
counter-culture and technological-oriented entrepreneurial capital-
ism represented different inflections of the frontier spirit that had
enabled Leland Stanford to make the fortune that founded Stanford
University. This fortuitous proximity of acid and silicon brought
together new technology and counter-cultural thinking and created
the circumstances that produced the Personal Computer and by
extension much of current digital culture.
Exemplary of the ethos of the West Coast counter-culture was the
Whole Earth project, founded by Steward Brand and funded by the
Portola Institute, a non-profit alternative education organization,
which had been started by Bob Albrecht, who had originally worked
for the Control Data Corporation. It was a venture aimed at giving
people access, through regular 'catalogs', to the tools and ideas
with which to lead counter-cultural or alternative lifestyles, and as
such was a great success. In
, after three years of existence, those
involved decided to publish one last catalogue and then dissolve the
venture.
The Last Whole Earth Catalog
6
was duly published that year,
and was a far greater success than expected. It sold well enough to
require Brand and others to set up the means to distribute the profits
usefully and equitably. In
1971
The Whole Earth Epilog
7
was published
which continued in the same vein, followed in
1974
by an update,
The Next Whole Earth Catalog
.
8
The Whole Earth Review
, a quarterly
journal, was also produced. It too engendered imitations, such as
the English
An Index of Possibilities,
9
published in the mid-'
1982
s.
The Last Whole Earth Catalog
was more than simply a catalogue. It
presents a valuable insight into the broad and heterogeneous sources
of alternative thinking. As well as sources for agricultural imple-
ments, building and craft tools, musical instruments, aids to physi-
cal and mental self-help, and for the care of animals, it also contains
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