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October 2021 Vol. 59 No. 2

Trask (Univ. of Kentucky) engages an eclectic range of texts—philosophical, legal, sociological, economic, and literary discourses of the 1970s—to look at the cultural underpinnings of antiutilitarianism, the rejection of people en masse, and the revival of a subjectivity he describes as neo-idealism—evident in a preoccupation with the development and monetizing of higher consciousness, which helped initiate the economics of neo-liberalism in the following decades. Much of what he deals with comes from the period’s "fringe" (his term) discourses, so Philip K. Dick, Charles Reich, Alvin Toffler, and Hal Lindsey share company with Don DeLillo, John Irving, James Merrill, and John Rawls (to mention just some of the thinkers discussed). The array of references and quotations is dizzying, and taken together they create a convincing portrait of the zeitgeist. Not strictly moral philosophy, history, or literary criticism, Trask’s book occasionally bows under the weight of its learning and his argument gets lost. But his reevaluation of the period’s intellectual and cultural currents is remarkable: as he writes in the introduction, “The decade’s centrifuge was consciousness itself.” Consequently, New Age seekers and Christian fundamentalists, to identify one curious pairing, shared common ground in the 1970s as they do in this demanding book.

--B. Diemert, Brescia University College

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.