Radical Middle's Best Political Books of the 70s

The 1970s were an exciting time: Although the New Left collapsed, a new political movement -- oriented more to ecology, voluntary simplicity and sexual liberation than socialism -- came to the fore.

Detractors called it the “New Age” movement, but from the beginning it sought to develop a coherent new analysis of society and strategy for social change (see New World Alliance elsewhere on this website).

Today many New Age political ideas, dressed up in more sober garb, have entered and are continuing to enter the mainstream. Some are called “radical centrist” or “radical middle” ideas, a concept popularized by Marilyn Ferguson in her 1980 bestseller, The Aquarian Conspiracy.

The following books were the backbone of that movement. Most of them hold up well. And they’re far more visionary than what’s coming off the presses today -- which suggests, sadly, that the sense of possibility in the 1970s was far greater than it is today.

All blue links below will take you to that book's page on Amazon.com.

So, enjoy!

II. THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do

Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (novel)

Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics: The Economics of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth

Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be?

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Willis Harman, An Incomplete Guide to the Future

Hazel Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures: The End of Economics

John Holt, Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children

Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality

Julius Lester, All Is Well

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Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Towards a Durable Peace

Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome

Roban Morgan, ed., Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement

Lewis Mumford, The Pentagon of Power (The Myth of the Machine, Vol. II)

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

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Michael Phillips, The Seven Laws of Money

Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

James Robertson, The Sane Alternative: A Choice of Futures

Theodore Roszak, Person / Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society

Mark Satin, New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society

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E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered

Philip Slater, Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point

Robert Theobald, Beyond Despair: Directions for America's Third Century

William Irwin Thompson, At the Edge of History and Passages About Earth

Alvin Toffler, Future Shock

III. STILL NOT SATISFIED?

See our picks of the best visionary political books from the 2000s, HERE; from the 1990s, HERE; from the 1980s, HERE. And see HERE for an annotated list of all our Radical Middle Political Book Award winners from 1980 through 2009.

ABOUT THE RADICAL MIDDLE CONCEPT

WHY "Radical Middle"?

WIKIPEDIA Weighs In

50 Thinkers and Activists DESCRIBE the Radical Middle

50 Best Radical Middle BOOKS of the '00s

GREAT RADICAL MIDDLE GROUPS AND BLOGS:

100 Great Radical Centrist GROUPS and Organizations

25 Great Radical Centrist BLOGS

SOME PRIOR RADICAL MIDDLE INITIATIVES:

Generational Equity and Communitarian platforms 1990s

First U.S. Green Party gatherings, 1987 - 1990

Green Party's "Ten Key Values" statement, 1984