Macrocosm USA: Possibilities for a New Progressive Era... edited by Sandi Brockway (Macrocosm USA, Box 185, Cambria CA 93428; $24.95). Browsing in this book, which describes itself as "an environmental, political, and social solutions handbook with directories," is like looking at a huge Utne Reader. More than 200 articles from the alternative press are reprinted here, organized in 14 issue-oriented chapters and indexed by topic, source, and author. And that is only the first half of the book. The second half is a series of directories: organizations, periodicals, media and computers, publishers, businesses, and reference books. There is no guide to the social change movements comparable to this: It seems destined to become indispensable.
- Andrea Honebrink, Utne Reader, Bound for Glory Books, September/October 1993
A remedy for habitually disorganized progressives, students and reporters in search of experts, and dispirited activists, Macrocosm USA: Possibilities for a New Progressive Era has arrived. The 432-page handbook lets your digits do the waltzing through more than 5000 listings of nonprofit groups, periodicals, guides, directories, and data bases. Looking for the Center for Investigative Reporting? Or the Arctic to Amazonia Alliance? Search no further. They're all here. along with periodicals from Plant Shutdowns Monitor to Sing Out! Magazine (devoted to folk music). The book appears as accurate as such a vast collection can be. You can find out about progressive computer networks and companies offering socially responsible investing - or Guatemalan handicrafts. A big chunk of Macrocosm USA contains almost 200 excerpted alternative-press articles on environmental, political, and social issues.
At a minimum, Macrocosm USA is a much-needed, relatively effective way to track down a group whose name and purpose you already know. Or to amuse yourself if you have spare time, investigating the Children as Peacemakers Foundation, Solar Box Cookers International, or the Publication Free and Inexpensive Materials on World Affairs. Over the years a number of activist directories, most more limited in scope, have been published. Macrocosm is bigger and more useful. It's available in database form, for MS-DOS or Mac, which means you can sort the data for your own purposes, create mailing lists, and the like.
- Russ W. Baker, Village Voice, March 16, 1993
Social Issues
Over two hundred articles and 5,000 listings reference progressive organizations, periodicals and publications, and reference sources on activism, politics, and social sciences. Macrocosm USA seeks to identify and provide resources for the world's most pressing problems, and includes references to solutions in the process. Macrocosm USA is an invaluable, practical resource which includes strong, exceptionally well written articles.
- Midwest Book Review, The Bookwatch, Diane Donovan
MACROCOSM USA. Edited by Sandi Brockway. Macrocosm USA, Inc., paper, $24.95. A massive, 420-page extravaganza: An Environmental, Political, and Social Solutions Handbook with Directories. 5000 listings of organizations and media outlets, businesses, publishers. 200 vital articles. From the editor: "It is my highest aspiration that the Macrocosm handbook and database will revolutionize research, journalism, networking, grassroots activism, politics and, foremost, the way in which we teach the Social Sciences." War and peace, developing nations, demographics and justice issues, ecology, agriculture, energy, economics, labor, health, education, feminism, politics, media, the arts, ethics and spirituality. Change is the operative force here, the change towards a new age of political and sociological significance. The articles, the short essays are exceptionally impressive. Desert Snow Storm talks about how CBS and NBC withheld footage of Gulf War carnage. Exposing Glamorized Degradation talks about the ridiculous beauty myth. Against drug enforcement and for drug education. A fine profile on Bill Mollison who won the 1981 Right Livelihood award. On militarism and tourism keeping Hawaii a colony. Unbelievable amount of information here. A more socially aware Whole Earth Catalog.
- THE BOOK READER, Fall 1993, Page 4
The first half of this multipurpose reference work consists of brief reprints from many small circulation, low-budget, low-visibility publications. Some of these essays tend toward well-trodden left/green paths -- familiar, at least, if you live in Northern California, the Concern Capital of America. They are nevertheless worthwhile, some are really swell, and to have seen them all before you would have to know where to find some pretty obscure organizations and periodicals.
Which knowledge, really, is Macrocosm's principal use: the second half is a densely cross-referenced directory of progressive endeavors -- organizations, periodicals, computer media, publishers, businesses, and reference resources. The directory's index to subjects alone runs to thirteen pages; all told, there are about 5,000 entries. This book has serious potential as a tool for making connections and coalitions. --JD
- The New Millennium Whole Earth Catalog, 1995
MACROCOSM USA: Possibilities for a New Progressive Era, edited by Sandi Brockway ($24.95 softcover from Macrocosm USA Inc., Box 185, Cambria, Calif. 93428, phone (805) 927-8030), is a remarkable compendium of information for networkers of almost every description. Part anthology and part reference work, Macrocosm USA's 14 chapters and 432 large, crowded pages cover such sweeping global issues as war and peace, economics and the environment. Under each topic an immense array of reprinted essays, most of a liberal cast, analyze flaws in current thinking and offer innovations. The text includes photos, graphics and cartoons. The vast resource section lists periodicals, networks, publishers, organizations and individuals involved in bringing about a better world. The work is intended to illustrate the interdependence that is both our curse and our potential salvation, Brockway says. It is an attempt to "broaden and galvanize a new agenda from seemingly disparate issues into one comprehensible 'whole.' "
- Brain/Mind and Common Sense, May 1993
When the Whole Earth Catalog came out more than 20 years ago, it took the country by storm. It was uniquely progressive in outlook, prodigious in scope, and enormous in scale. It was a catalog of both merchandise and ideas, offered up as gems to be admired and used rather than sold. People felt empowered by it because its focus was on "quality" and truth. The Catalog was itself a valuable product and not just a self-serving vehicle for merchandising "stuff."
I think the WEC has provided inspiration for grass-roots, service oriented information lovers ever since. Such inspiration, powered by the enormous information handling capabilities provided by the personal computer revolution, has given birth to a new genre of book-catalog-magazine-database information resources.
One of these is Macrocosm USA, which has been in preparation for at least 3 years. It first appeared early in 1992 as a computer database distributed on floppy disks.
The Macrocosm USA Handbook has much in common with the extremely successful Directory of Intentional Communities in that it is both a directory and a compilation of descriptive articles and clips. It is produced in the same style - a slick, large format, paperback, this one containing 400+ pages and over 200 articles. Like the Communities Directory, the Macrocosm USA Handbook, provides comprehensive coverage of issues, sources, and materials, but it covers a much broader scope.
Its 14 topical sections span a wide range of social, economic, environmental, technological, political and spiritual issues. Its listings of organizations, periodicals, sources, catalogs, references, directories, and people, constitute a unique tool for grassroots networking and empowerment.
The Macrocosm USA Handbook will be a tremendous resource for anyone interested in social trends, alternative lifestyles, or cooperative structures; and a boon to organizers, activists, and change agents as they grapple with the task of building new structures for the post-industrial, compassionate era.
A review by T.H. Greco, author of New Money for Healthy Communities
Green Revolution, Winter 1992
Macrocosm USA, edited by Sandi Brockway, is an unique guide created by a small group of volunteers at Macrocosm USA, Inc., a nonprofit group in California. The handbook is divided into two sections. The first half is a compilation of hundreds of informative, interesting, and alarming articles from various "alternative" magazines and newsletter. The articles deal with many of the most important issues of our day, from agricultural issues to ethics to peace.
The second half of the handbook is extremely useful to the world federalist. It contains a comprehensive directory covering periodicals, media outlets and progressive organizations that are vigorously seeking new solutions to the world's problems. In this section thousands of organizations and individuals dedicated to improving and changing our planet for the better are listed.
This highly informative resource offer many solutions to today's problems. It should be of immediate help and interest to any person who feels that the world's problems can be solved if only we choose to see the answers.
As Brockway says, "it's more than a directory. Macrocosm promises to be the progressive's one-stop-shop field manual."
- World Federalist News, 1994
This is such an overwhelming compendium of information I'm surprised I didn't come across it sooner. It 's an amazing book, over 400 pages packed full of vital information about progressive thinking across the country. Perhaps the only thing I can compare it to is the Whole Earth Catalog or maybe Factsheet Five, in the sense that it's so mindboggling.
Fourteen different subjects - from ecology to peace to health to the media - filled with thought-provoking articles compiled from a variety of sources. While it appears overwhelming at first, it's also quite readable. You can just sit down and read page after page of these intriguing articles. That' just the first half. Then there's nine different indexes and directories, with 5,000 entries, so you can quickly find the exact publication or organization you are looking for. Indispensable for the informed radical who refuses to give up the fight.
- Seth Friedman, Factsheet Five, 1995
Macrocosm USA Home Page