From one of our greatest chroniclers of technology and society the definitive biography of
iconic serial visionary Stewart Brand from the Merry Pranksters and the generation-defining
Whole Earth Catalog to the marriage of environmental consciousness and hacker capitalism and
the rise of a new planetary culture-the story behind so many other stories Stewart Brand has
long been famous if you knew who he was but for many people outside the counterculture early
computing or the environmental movement he is perhaps best known for his famous mantra Stay
Hungry. Stay Foolish. Steve Jobs's endorsement of these words as his code to live by is fitting
Brand has played many roles but one of the most important is as a model for how to live. The
contradictions are striking: A blond-haired WASP with a modest family inheritance he went to
Exeter and Stanford and was an army veteran but in California in the 1960s he was an artist
and a photographer in the thick of the LSD revolution. While tripping on acid on the roof of
his building he envisioned how valuable it would be for humans to see a photograph of the
planet they shared from space an image that in the end landed on the cover of his Whole Earth
Catalog the defining publication of the counterculture. He married a Native American woman and
was committed to protecting indigenous culture which connected to a broader environmentalist
mission that has been a through line of his life. At the same time he has outraged purists
because of his pragmatic embrace of useful technologies including nuclear power in the fight
against climate change. The famous tagline promise of his catalog was Access to Tools with
rare exceptions he rejected politics for a focus on direct power. It was no wonder then that
he was early to the promise of the computer revolution and helped define it for the wider
world. Unlike most people who make a mark in one field Brand has a life that can be hard to
fit onto one screen. John Markoff also a great chronicler of tech culture has done something
extraordinary in unfolding the rich twisting story of Brand's life against its proper
landscape. As Markoff makes marvelously clear the streams of individualism respect for
science environmentalism and embrace of Eastern and indigenous thought that flow through
Brand's entire life form a powerful gestalt a California state of mind that has a hegemonic
power to this day. At its best it is the wellspring for a true planetary consciousness that
may be the best hope we humans collectively have.
