Culture Gap

Decades ago, out back of beyond, Camelsfoot, a philosophical commune aspired to "self-conscious culture making." Imbued with her conviction that a "meaningful and caring life with others is our natural right," Judith Plant's memoir of its fleeting achievement and many uncommon good times glows with wisdom, complexity, and compassion. A noble read. - Stephanie Mills, author of Epicurean Simplicity and In Service of the Wild

The experiment of uptopia has a long track record of failure, yet its allure will forever capture our dreams of possibility. It takes great courage to plunge into its trails and tribulations. It takes even greater courage to emerge at the other end knowing you have failed, and then write - with sensitivity and openess - about the many losses...and gains. Judith Plant embodies such courage. Her work is a testament to the power of "lived experience." - Alejandro Frid, author of A world for My Daughter: an Ecologist's Search for Optimism

Judith Plant captures the spirit of a generation. Trust, good politics, community, imagination, culture creation, surprise, disappointment, death - all figure into this spark of twentieth-century history. - Chellis Glendinning, author of My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization

The passion with which some of the people tried to develop new ways of living and relating to each other filters through these pages with truth, as does the confusion in which participants were frequently mired. This is how it was. May other generations read this book with curiosity and learn from our trials, for their own evolution - Delores Broten, editor of Watershed Sentinel