Charles A. Reich, who as a 42-year-old Yale Law School professor swapped button-down Brooks Brothers shirts for hippie beads and vaulted to intellectual celebrity by venerating the counterculture in his manifesto, “The Greening of America,” died on Saturday in San Francisco. He was 91.
His death was confirmed by Daniel Reich, his nephew.
By the time “The Greening of America” was published in 1970, Mr. Reich (the “ch” is pronounced “sh”), a son of privilege and private schools, was already an eminent legal scholar, if something of a heretic. He was best known then for his article “The New Property” (1964), which defended an individual’s right to privacy and autonomy against government prerogative.
That article was cited in 1970 in a landmark United States Supreme Court decision, which broadened the definition of property rights to include licenses, contracts and welfare benefits.
That same year, as the rebellious fervor of the 1960s appeared to be peaking, The New Yorker published a 39,000-word excerpt from “The Greening of America,” giving flower children a powerful intellectual rationale and their worried parents a measure of comfort by casting the younger generation’s values, built on personal happiness instead of material success, as constructive and benign.
The excerpt, and the subsequent best-selling book, gave Mr. Reich a kind of rock-star celebrity. “The Greening of America” entered the canon of sociological megahits published in 1970, alongside Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock” and Philip Slater’s “The Pursuit of Loneliness.” But while Mr. Reich’s fame spilled beyond the Yale campus, even spawning a character based on him in the comic strip “Doonesbury,” many critics saw his sermonizing as naïve and sentimental.
The New Yorker excerpt portentously began: “There is a revolution underway — not like revolutions of the past. This is the revolution of a new generation. It has originated with the individual and with culture, and if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act.”
Mr. Reich traced the metamorphosis of American society through three levels of consciousness: Consciousness I, the nation’s early self-reliance; Consciousness II, the conformism of the New Deal era; and Consciousness III, an unshackling from the stifling moral constraints of the 1950s, focusing on spiritual fulfillment.
“The extraordinary thing about this new consciousness,” he wrote, “is that it has emerged from the machine-made environment of the corporate state, like flowers pushing up through a concrete pavement.”
He added, “For those who thought the world was irretrievably encased in metal and plastic and sterile stone, it seems a veritable greening of America.”
Charles Alan Reich was born on May 20, 1928, in Manhattan to Dr. Carl and Eleanor (Lesinsky) Reich. His father was a hematologist — Mr. Reich later said that he had learned his father’s diagnostic techniques and applied them to the law — and his mother was a school administrator. The parents later divorced.
Charles and his brother, Peter, attended City and Country School in Greenwich Village and the Lincoln School of Teachers College. (Peter died in 2013.)
Although he was born and bred in the city, Mr. Reich craved the outdoors. He hiked 45 of the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks.
“Rather than complete the set,” Judith Resnik, founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale, said in an email, “he thought it would be better to imagine what the 46th looked like.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in history at Oberlin College in Ohio and graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Justice Hugo L. Black of the United States Supreme Court and worked at two law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York and Arnold, Fortes & Porter in Washington, before returning to Yale in 1960 to teach. His students there later included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.
Early in his tenure as an assistant professor, “Charles was compelled to teach a course in property law, a subject about which he felt almost completely uninformed,” J. Anthony Kline, a friend who is now the senior presiding justice of the California Court of Appeal, recalled.
Mr. Reich reasoned that if a statutory entitlement, like welfare benefits, was considered property, it was entitled to greater legal protection, Justice Kline said, thereby advancing “an unconventional idea in a legally conventional and persuasive way.”
As a result, the Supreme Court ruled in Goldberg v. Kelly in 1970 that welfare recipients suspected of fraud in New York were entitled to an evidentiary hearing before they could be deprived of benefits.
“The Greening of America” was inspired in part by Mr. Reich’s personal encounters in San Francisco during the so-called Summer of Love in 1967. The book, Rodger D. Citron wrote in the New York Law School Law Review in 2007, combined “the rigor of an intellectual and the enthusiasm of a teenager.”
It might not have appeared in print if Mr. Reich’s mother, who ran the Horace Mann School for Nursery Years in New York, had not mentioned to a parent at the school that her son’s manuscript was languishing at a publisher. The parent was Lillian Ross, a writer for The New Yorker and paramour of the magazine’s editor, William Shawn.
The book became a best seller in 1970 despite mixed notices. Reviewing it in The Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt proclaimed that in Mr. Reich “youth culture has gotten its very own Norman Vincent Peale,” referring to the author of “The Power of Positive Thinking.” In Mr. Reich’s utopia, he wrote, “we’ll just stop consuming what we don’t need, stop doing meaningless work, stop playing war and ego games.”
In retrospect, the cultural critic Thomas Hine wrote in 2007, “Reich’s mistake was to interpret minor, transient phenomena as bellwethers of permanent, positive change.”
He added: “Bell-bottoms were, he said, a way of expressing personal freedom, the delight and beauty of movement, and a rather comic attitude toward life. He wasn’t wrong about that, but he seemed to think that people would be wearing bell-bottoms forever.”
Mr. Reich left Yale in 1974. “ ‘The Greening of America’ did me in as far as academe was concerned,” he recalled in 2012.
He moved to San Francisco, where he taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of San Francisco School of Law and published an autobiography, “The Sorcerer of Bolinas Reef” (1976), in which he revealed that he was gay (although he said he was never defined by his sexuality). He returned to Yale Law School from 1991 to 1995 as a visiting professor at the invitation of Guido Calabresi, the dean.
“Most of us in the mid-1960s thought the world was fine and headed in a comfortably liberal and unified direction,” Professor Calabresi said in an email. “Charley saw it differently and walked the halls of the Law School, in effect, saying, ‘Repent, the end is near.’ ”
He added: “Was it completely correct? No; prophets rarely are. Did it see and enlighten what most of us had missed altogether? Absolutely!”
In addition to his nephew, Mr. Reich is survived by a niece, Alice Reich.
In writing “The Greening of America” and revisiting his premise 25 years later in “Opposing the System,” Mr. Reich said his goal had been “to make people think.”
By that measure, he succeeded.
His vision of a new consciousness was so universally adopted, he said shortly after “Greening” was published, that “everybody now feels they wrote the book.”
Four decades later, he was asked whether the hopefulness he had expressed had faded.
“It could still be reality,” Mr. Reich replied, “but at the moment it’s viewed as something like a fantasy or a dream that people woke up from with a headache.”
Page Contents
- FAQs
- The Greening of America – Wikipedia
- The Greening of America by Charles A. Reich – Goodreads
- REFLECTIONS THE GREENING OF AMERICA
- The Greening of America – Charles A. Reich – Google Books
- A Half Century After Its Publication, What Can “The Greening …
- Charles Reich, Who Saw 'The Greening of America,' Dies at 91
FAQs
The Greening of America – Wikipedia
The Greening of America The Greening of America Hardcover editionAuthorCharles A. ReichCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishSubjectSociologyGenreNon-fictionPublisherRandom HousePublication date1970Media typePrint, e-bookPages399 pp. (hardcover)Followed byGarcia: A Signpost to New Space The Greening of America is a 1970 book by Charles A. Reich. It is a paean to the counterculture of the 1960s and its values. Excerpts first appeared as an essay in the September 26, 1970 issue of The New Yorker.[1] The book was originally published by Random House. Overview[edit] The book’s argument rests on three separate types of world view: “Consciousness I” applies to the typical values and opinions of rural farmers and small businesspeople which dominated society in 19th century America. “Consciousness II” represents a viewpoint of “an organizational society”, featuring meritocracy and improvement through various large institutions, the ethos of the New Deal, World War II and the 1950s Silent Generation. “Consciousness III” represents the worldview of the 1960s counterculture, focusing on personal freedom, egalitarianism, and recreational drugs.[2] The book mixed sociological analysis with panegyrics to rock music, cannabis, and blue jeans, arguing that these fashions embodied a fundamental social shift. Bestseller[edit] The book was a best-seller in 1970 and 1971, and topped the New York Times Best Seller list on December 27, 1970 and other weeks.[3] References[edit] Citron, Rodger D. (August 2007). “Charles Reich’s Journey From the Yale Law Journal to the New York Times Best-Seller List: The Personal History of The Greening of America” (PDF). New York Law School Law Review. New York: New York Law School. 52 (3). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-19. +–+Google Scholar The Greening of America turns 40: Q&A: Charles Reich, by Daniel Schwartz, CBC News, updated: Sept. 27, 2010 External links[edit] book profile in Amazon.com
The Greening of America by Charles A. Reich – Goodreads
The Greening of America Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating Be the first to ask a question about The Greening of America Average rating 3.56 · · 342 ratings · 42 reviews | Start your review of The Greening of America “There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act.”The Greening of America is about a Revolution. Unfortunately, the Revolution envisioned by Charles A. Reich has not yet come to pass. Written in 1970, when the country was in the middle of the Vietnam War, on the eve of the Arab Oil Embargo, of an economic downturn, and of social upheaval and urban de …more i’m beginning to think this was a bad idea…i’m only 1 page into this book and it’s already talking about how the youth movement of the late 60s/early 70s will be a strong and lasting one that will eventually overtake all ages and generations. the punk and metalhead inside me are crying their angry little eyes out….okay, so a couple of weeks have passed, and i’ve finished the book, and i’ve had time to form a complete opinion of it and here’s where i stand:i got something out of reading this …more I read this in the early 70’s, during the latter days of the Viet Nam War and not too long after Woodstock. It was a seminal and at the time highly influential and formative book for me. I still find it so, and there seem to be so many parallels today with those times. We see the racist resistance of the Tea Party, reactionary thinking by religious, fundamentalist groups, resistance to equal rights and equal pay for women, and the on-going wars of capitalism, and suppression of the vote in a dee …more Short review: “Hippie dream”. No, Chuck. You don’t say. Like, wow, man. THE GREENING OF AMERICA is that rare book that manages to be both silly and (semi)prophetic at the same time. Back in 1970 bands of stoned-out roadsters, whom we called in the U.S. “Hippies”, roamed the land in search of transcendence and opposing whatever their parents were into this week. The air and water were killing us so the first Earth Day was proclaimed. Lo and behold, Charles Reich, a Harvard Professor drop-out (yes …more I read this book back in the early 1970s. The Greening of America expressed enthusiastic praise for the counterculture of the 1960s and its values. In retrospect its message seems naive because it predicted the baby boomers would be a politically progressive generation, and we now know how that turned out.If I remember correctly this book contained a graph showing the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere versus time. If it wasn’t this book it was one I read at about the same time. If it was in the book …more Add four stars to my rate if you are looking for a comprehensive manifesto of the Flower Power movement. I was greatly impressed when I read this ludicrous book as a 16 year old. Reich argued that wearing bell bottoms and smoking pot were progressive actions that would lead to a better, greener society. Fortunately, I was smart enough never to have admit having read it when I arrived on a university campus two years later. For someone attempting to understand Hippies and…
REFLECTIONS THE GREENING OF AMERICA
REFLECTIONS THE GREENING OF AMERICAThe New Yorker, September 26, 1970 P. 42REFLECTIONS about U.S. society & its new generation. There is a revolution under way–not like revolutions of the past. This is the revolution of the new generation. It has originated with the individual & with culture, & if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed & it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading rapidly, & already our laws, institutions, & social structure are changing in consequence. Its ultimate creation could be a higher reason, a more human community, & a new & liberated individual. It is a transformation that seems both necessary & inevitable, & in time it may turn out to include not only youth but the entire American people. The logic of the new generation’s rebellion must be understood in light of the rise of the corporate state under which we live & the way in which the state dominates, exploits, & ultimately destroys both nature & man. Americans have lost control of the machinery of their society, & only new values & a new culture can restore control. At the heart of everything is what must be called a change of consciousness. This means a new way of living–almost a new man. This is what the new generation has been searching for, & what it has started to achieve. Industrialism produced a new man, too–one adapted to the demands of the machine. In contrast, today’s emerging consciousness seeks a new knowledge of what it means to be human, in order that the machine, having been built, may now be turned to human ends.View Article
The Greening of America – Charles A. Reich – Google Books
The Greening of AmericaWhat people are saying – Write a reviewReviews aren’t verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it’s identifiedLibraryThing ReviewUser Review – thebookpile – LibraryThingThe first two thirds of the book, which are primarily a history of the relationship between government and business, are great. The last third, which deals with the then-present (1970) and future, is so terrible that I feel embarassed for the author. Read full reviewUser Review – Flag as inappropriatei want to read this book
A Half Century After Its Publication, What Can “The Greening …
A Half Century After Its Publication, What Can “The Greening of America” Tell Us About the United States Today? It was 50 years ago this week that the New Yorker published “The Greening of America,” a 70-page article by a Yale Law School professor named Charles Reich. The article launched an unlikely best-selling book and prompted an extended debate over its account of American society and embrace of the student counterculture. “The Greening” was published at a convulsive time: Richard Nixon had won a bruising presidential election two years before, the Vietnam War had expanded a few months earlier with the invasion of Cambodia, and college students protesting at Kent State and Jackson State had been shot and killed in clashes with authorities. Political division, unrest in the streets—add a global pandemic, and you have all of the ingredients for a timely reconsideration of the relevance of Reich’s work. There is a tendency today, especially by conservatives like editorial writers for the Wall Street Journal, to dismiss “The Greening of America” as no more than a professor’s paean to his hippy students. This is caricature. What did Reich actually say in “The Greening”? Why did it generate such a strong response? And what does “The Greening” have to say about the fractures of our current moment? Re-Reading the New Yorker Article Reich graduated from Yale Law School in 1952, clerked for Justice Hugo Black, and joined the faculty in 1960. After writing a number of insightful law review articles criticizing certain aspects of the liberal administrative state and proposing legal reforms to improve it—his most well-known article is the canonical “The New Property”—Reich became interested in the student counterculture. In 1967, he spent the summer in Berkeley, California. When Reich returned to Yale in the fall, he resumed work on a book that he had started earlier in the decade. Originally Reich envisioned that book, entitled “The Coming of the Closed Society,” as a lament for the loss of civil liberties in the United States. Now, with the student revolution in full swing, Reich had cause for optimism. Reich completed his manuscript in 1970 and gave it a new title: “The Greening of America.” Through a serendipitous turn of events, the book was given an enormous boost when the New Yorker published its lengthy excerpt as a “Reflections” article in its September 26, 1970, issue. Reading the article today as it was published in the magazine is a journey through the past. The issue cost 50 cents. It was 144-pages long and featured advertisements for exotic travel (China Airlines promising “the Ming Dynasty” to passengers on flights to Tokyo), liquor, and a “new color portable” TV sold by Sony promising a “brighter, sharper” 9-inch “picture, measured diagonally.” The New Yorker article began: “There is a revolution under way. It is not like revolutions of the past. It has originated with the individual and with culture, and if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions, and social structures are changing in consequence. Its…
Charles Reich, Who Saw 'The Greening of America,' Dies at 91
Charles Reich, Who Saw ‘The Greening of America,’ Dies at 91Credit…Israel ShenkerCharles A. Reich, who as a 42-year-old Yale Law School professor swapped button-down Brooks Brothers shirts for hippie beads and vaulted to intellectual celebrity by venerating the counterculture in his manifesto, “The Greening of America,” died on Saturday in San Francisco. He was 91.His death was confirmed by Daniel Reich, his nephew.By the time “The Greening of America” was published in 1970, Mr. Reich (the “ch” is pronounced “sh”), a son of privilege and private schools, was already an eminent legal scholar, if something of a heretic. He was best known then for his article “The New Property” (1964), which defended an individual’s right to privacy and autonomy against government prerogative.That article was cited in 1970 in a landmark United States Supreme Court decision, which broadened the definition of property rights to include licenses, contracts and welfare benefits.That same year, as the rebellious fervor of the 1960s appeared to be peaking, The New Yorker published a 39,000-word excerpt from “The Greening of America,” giving flower children a powerful intellectual rationale and their worried parents a measure of comfort by casting the younger generation’s values, built on personal happiness instead of material success, as constructive and benign.The excerpt, and the subsequent best-selling book, gave Mr. Reich a kind of rock-star celebrity. “The Greening of America” entered the canon of sociological megahits published in 1970, alongside Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock” and Philip Slater’s “The Pursuit of Loneliness.” But while Mr. Reich’s fame spilled beyond the Yale campus, even spawning a character based on him in the comic strip “Doonesbury,” many critics saw his sermonizing as naïve and sentimental.The New Yorker excerpt portentously began: “There is a revolution underway — not like revolutions of the past. This is the revolution of a new generation. It has originated with the individual and with culture, and if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act.”Mr. Reich traced the metamorphosis of American society through three levels of consciousness: Consciousness I, the nation’s early self-reliance; Consciousness II, the conformism of the New Deal era; and Consciousness III, an unshackling from the stifling moral constraints of the 1950s, focusing on spiritual fulfillment.“The extraordinary thing about this new consciousness,” he wrote, “is that it has emerged from the machine-made environment of the corporate state, like flowers pushing up through a concrete pavement.”He added, “For those who thought the world was irretrievably encased in metal and plastic and sterile stone, it seems a veritable greening of America.”Charles Alan Reich was born on May 20, 1928, in Manhattan to Dr. Carl and Eleanor (Lesinsky) Reich. His father was a hematologist — Mr. Reich later said that he had learned his father’s diagnostic techniques and applied them to the law — and his mother was a school administrator. The parents later divorced.Charles and his brother, Peter, attended City and Country School in Greenwich Village and the Lincoln School of Teachers College. (Peter died in 2013.)Although he was born and bred in the city, Mr. Reich craved the outdoors. He hiked 45 of the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks.“Rather than complete the set,” Judith Resnik, founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale, said in an email, “he thought it would be better to imagine what the 46th looked like.”After earning a bachelor’s degree in history at Oberlin College in Ohio and graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Justice Hugo L. Black of the United States Supreme Court and worked at two law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York and Arnold, Fortes & Porter in Washington, before returning to Yale in 1960 to teach. His students there later included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham.Early in his tenure as an assistant professor, “Charles was compelled to teach a course in property law, a subject about which he felt almost completely uninformed,” J. Anthony Kline, a friend who is now the senior presiding justice of the California Court of Appeal, recalled.Mr. Reich reasoned that if a statutory entitlement,…