A More Perfect Union: Holistic Worldviews and the Transformation of American Culture After World War II

"Readable and well crafted, A More Perfect Union contributes significantly to modern American cultural history. With originality and insight, Linda Sargent Wood traces key intellectual and cultural trends that converged after World War II to create a `holistic' worldview whose influence creasted in the 1960s and early '70s." Paul S. Boyer, Editor in Chief, The Oxford Companion to United States History

"This is a very important book, one that breaks new ground in recovering and analyzing very important aspects of the histories of the long 1960s. It avoids the easy way out of seeing this period as a series of separate decades and therefore helps us understand the period and its phenomena as a whole. Wood effectively reveals a critically important cultural movement/moment-one whose impulses were central to the period and retain their presence in our world. The writing is vigorous and clear; the research, very thorough." Daniel Horowitz, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of American Studies, Smith College

In 1962, when the Cold War threatened to ignite in the Cuban Missile Crisis, When more nuclear test bombs were detonated than in any other year in history, Rachel Carson released her own bombshell, Silent Spring, to challenge society's use of pesticides. To counter the use of chemicals-and bombs-the naturalist articulated a holistic vision. She wrote about a "web of life" that connected humans to the world around them and argued that actions taken in one place had consequences elsewhere. Thousands accepted her message, joined environmental groups, flocked to Earth Day celebrations, and lobbied for legislative regulation.

Carson was not the only intellectual to offer holistic answers to society's problems. This book uncovers a sensibility in post-World War II American culture that both tested the logic of the Cold War and fed some of the twentieth century's most powerful social movements, from civil rights to environmentalism to the counterculture. The study examines important leaders and institutions that embraced and put into practice a holistic vision for a peaceful, healthful, and just world: nature writer Rachel Carson, structural engineer R. Buckminster Fuller, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, and the Esalen Institute and its founders, Michael Murphy and Dick Price. Each Looked to whole systems instead of parts and focused on connections, interdependencies, and integration to create a better world.

Though the '60s dreams of creating a more perfect world were tempered by economic inequalities, political corruption, and deep social divisions, this holistic sensibility continues to influence American culture today.

Linda Sargent Wood is an assistant professor of history at Northern Arizona University, where she teaches, courses on American culture, the historical inquiry process, and history education. She earned her doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park.