Whole Earth Index

The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articles, but was primarily focused on product reviews. The editorial focus was on self-sufficiency, ecology, alternative education, “do it yourself,” and holism, featuring the slogan “access to tools.”

Founded in 1974 by the staff of the Whole Earth Catalog, CoEvolution Quarterly lasted 10 years as a small circulation magazine whose titular founding idea was coined by zoologist Paul Ehrlich and botanist Peter Raven to account for events that neither of their separate disciplines could explain. The moral of the co-evolutionary perspective is its imperative to always look one level larger and one level finer (at least) than where you are, and to see clear through your cycles.

Articles include wide-ranging topics such as Paul Ehrlich on the biology of communities, R. Crumb drawings, Pat Califia’s lesbian sadomasochists’ manifesto, Gene Youngblood on the Future of Desire, Earl Butz debating Wendell Berry, Marshall McLuhan in dialog with Jerry Brown, a poem by Gary Snyder, Ivan Illich on computers, Ursula Le Guin on menopause, a wide-ranging discussion between Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, personal essays by Ken Kesey, and others.

The Whole Earth Software Catalog was proposed by John Brockman as a magazine which “would do for computing what the original had done for the counterculture: identify and recommend the best tools as they emerged.” The first issue was released in the Fall of 1984. The Whole Earth Software Catalog was a business failure, however, and was only published twice, with only three of the Whole Earth Software Review supplements published.

The Whole Earth Review was founded in January 1985 after the merger of the Whole Earth Software Review (a supplement to the Whole Earth Software Catalog) and the CoEvolution Quarterly. It continues the tradition of tool and book reviews interspersed with ecological and technology topics and articles treating social and community subjects. One of the journal’s recurring themes was “the commons” (a thing, institution or geographic space of, or having to do with, the community as a whole), and the related “tragedy of the commons.”

A continuation of Whole Earth Review from 1997 to 2002, revived and managed by Peter Warshall and Michael Stone, longtime writers and editors of prior Whole Earth publications. They launched with an updated slogan of “access to tools, ideas, and practices.”

Whole Earth published a number of singular publications throughout its run focused on topical themes, or containing content from aligned organizations. Often these volumes reprinted articles from prior Whole Earth perodical journals, supplemented with new content.