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Reporting from: https://exhibits.library.cornell.edu/diy-dit/feature/more-than-a-catalog

More Than a Catalog

Divine Right's Trip
"Divine Right's Trip" by Gurney Norman was serialized throughout 1974's Last Whole Earth Catalog.

Beyond being a big book of useful stuff, Whole Earth Catalog carried in it a variety of tips, useful knowledge, recipes, methodologies, and even recommendations for traveling to Nepal. 1974's Last Whole Earth Catalog even ran a novella across its pages in small chunks, a story titled "Divine Right's Trip" by Gurney Norman, that described a young counterculture man's physical trip from California to Kentucky and his spiritual journey from aimless wanderer to working his own farm. In no small part Whole Earth's goal was to help people make that same transformation, to shift from the wastefulness of contemporary society and live comfortably using their own hands and minds.

Think Little
Essay titled "Think Little" by Wendell Berry.

Whole Earth contained a number of pieces unrelated to catalog sales. An essay from Wendell Berry - "Think Little" - called out what he saw as failings of the Civil Rights and Anti-war movements and proposed his ideas for preventing such failings in the environmental movement. Ken Kesey - proponent of LSD and a friend of Stewart Brand from his Merry Prankster days in San Francisco - contributed a piece he wrote while being processed after one of his arrests. At the time Brand was fascinated with the ideas of Buckminster Fuller and dedicated an entire section of Whole Earth Catalog to his ideas on large-scale systems (and, of course, where to obtain several of his books). From a more practical standpoint, Whole Earth also printed sections on vegetarianism (with cookbooks), methodologies for dealing with the law in various forms, and even how to make cheese.

Soybeans
Environmental Law
How to make cheese
Bees