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Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-57131-253-2
Pages: 216
Publish Date: Dec, 2001
Genre: Nonfiction
An American Child Supreme
The Education of a Liberation Ecologist
BY John Nichols
Nichols was raised among naturalists and nurtured by a family history as American as the Stars and Stripes. His great—times five—grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence for New York State. Nichols sailed happily through a topnotch private school education and sold his first (best-selling) novel, The Sterile Cuckoo, at age 23. At that point, he considered himself”a child blessed by the culture and fated for delirious success."
"Nichols is awed by the mystery of how any human being in our day and age can rise above greed and self interest to create or care for anything else." —Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
But then a short trip to Guatemala derailed his life, setting him on a very different path toward radical social and environmental commitment. In the process, he let go of much privilege and discovered an obligation to defend the earth.
[Nichols] is a God-forsaken mountain of American conflict, spiritual doubt, political duality and gender confusion. Like a pioneer, he keeps lighting out for the territory ahead of the rest. . . . His language is fast and furious; his targets in order of rage are: capitalists, developers and politicians.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review“An American Child Supreme is less a memoir and more a manifesto. It is a glimpse of a man fighting his own conscience to make a choice: to drink from a tempting cup of material pleasures or remain true to the more palpable instincts of integrity, humanity, and humility.”
—Bloomsbury Review“Part of a fascinating series of books from Milkweed Editions called Credo, in which various writers focus in naturalism and ecology and explain how they cam to their world view. Descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Nichols experienced a kind of conversion experience after a trip to Guatemala radically changed his perspective. The book is an interesting look at a writer from the inside out and serves as a background on the concerns in both is fiction and nonfiction.”
—New Mexico Magazine“He explains the need to reinvent our economic philosophies because massive poverty for some cannot coexist with mass consumption for others, as each condition has devastating effects on the environment. . . . An obvious choice for libraries with interest in the author but also a worthwhile addition to environmental collections.”
—Nancy Moeckel, Library Journal“Nichols encapsulates his unusual life and uncompromising vision in a rousing tale of social conscience overriding privilege.”
—Booklist
