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Henry and the Great Society
The story of Henry, a man living in a cultural cul-de-sac, pursuing a way of life that was perhaps a hundred years behind the times, and what happens to him when modern living suddenly becomes a possibility. A series of seemingly inconsequential decisions, each one apparently beneficial in itself, inexorably destroys the self-sufficient, productive, peaceful, and satisfied Henry, transforming him into a thoroughly modern man--dependent, debt-ridden, unhealthy, overworked, worried. Henry's family is destroyed as his wife and children find lives to live outside the home.
118 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 21, 2023
I'll start here by writing for those who have not read the book (light spoilers) and finish with those who have (full spoilers).
I'm glad I read this book. The author, born in 1925 (important context), tells an allegorical story of fictional Henry and his perfect life for most of the book. It's a quick little read (probably 2-4 hours). In the last quarter, Roush breaks the 4th wall and addresses the reader, breaking down the story and being very forward with its meaning. As the front flap of the book gives away, this story and purpose at the end is intended for a Christian audience and attempts to rally people for how to live a happier, more purpose-filled life. The book seeks to enrich the perspective of the reader to consider what actually leads to a content life.
(SPOILERS) I sympathize with Roush's purpose with this book - that modernization and globalized society has brought with it great evils, camouflaged as "good things in life." He calls readers to take notice that materialism, and running ourselves busy for its sake, leads to a colorless, feckless life. That's where my shared perspective with the author stops. The story of Henry is painfully oversimplified. "Progress" comes to town (modernization in the form of plumbing and electricity and automobiles) and Henry buys into all of it at once as if he has no choice whatsoever but to go in desperate debt for it -- while also telling us that Henry is perfectly happy without it and doesn't want any of it.
The entire last part of the book, where the author addresses the reader directly, sounds like the ramblings of a stubborn old man who's resistant to change. Keep in mind, the book first published in 1969 and Roush was approaching 50 (around the age that Henry purposefully runs his car off a bridge). He argues that real life is just like Henry's story and backs up his arguments by saying 'who dare deny it' over and over again. Roush, quite literally, likens the mark of the beast to a credit card. He argues that the happy Christian life is like Henry's before progress comes - only concerned with food, water and shelter and a little preparation for a rainy day. Again, I don't disagree with this in basic principle, but Roush creates an entire anti-modern dogma from this. It reads of a cult manifesto. It's not evil to own a car, to have plumbing in your house, to take out a student loan. Jesus did not want us to remain uneducated or to reject modern medicine. Thanks to those who did NOT live as Roush would want - we have things like libraries and life-saving antibiotics for the price of a deli sandwich.
I must also add that the story of Henry, and Roush's glorification of it, strikes me as racist. Looking back to the pre-industrial age in America with reverence is only something a white man can do. Specifically, a white man. I didn't even look up Roush's race, but I have zero doubt he's a white man. Henry is the head of a complementarian, nuclear household, living life by working the farm, and being content with dominoes over candlelight as the respite after a long day. And living on land stolen from Native Americans likely never crossed his mind.
Again, I'm glad I read the book, and I think Roush's point still landed with me and left me with a net-positive in my perspective. But I cannot recommend this book to anyone. Time has not been kind to it.
I'm glad I read this book. The author, born in 1925 (important context), tells an allegorical story of fictional Henry and his perfect life for most of the book. It's a quick little read (probably 2-4 hours). In the last quarter, Roush breaks the 4th wall and addresses the reader, breaking down the story and being very forward with its meaning. As the front flap of the book gives away, this story and purpose at the end is intended for a Christian audience and attempts to rally people for how to live a happier, more purpose-filled life. The book seeks to enrich the perspective of the reader to consider what actually leads to a content life.
(SPOILERS) I sympathize with Roush's purpose with this book - that modernization and globalized society has brought with it great evils, camouflaged as "good things in life." He calls readers to take notice that materialism, and running ourselves busy for its sake, leads to a colorless, feckless life. That's where my shared perspective with the author stops. The story of Henry is painfully oversimplified. "Progress" comes to town (modernization in the form of plumbing and electricity and automobiles) and Henry buys into all of it at once as if he has no choice whatsoever but to go in desperate debt for it -- while also telling us that Henry is perfectly happy without it and doesn't want any of it.
The entire last part of the book, where the author addresses the reader directly, sounds like the ramblings of a stubborn old man who's resistant to change. Keep in mind, the book first published in 1969 and Roush was approaching 50 (around the age that Henry purposefully runs his car off a bridge). He argues that real life is just like Henry's story and backs up his arguments by saying 'who dare deny it' over and over again. Roush, quite literally, likens the mark of the beast to a credit card. He argues that the happy Christian life is like Henry's before progress comes - only concerned with food, water and shelter and a little preparation for a rainy day. Again, I don't disagree with this in basic principle, but Roush creates an entire anti-modern dogma from this. It reads of a cult manifesto. It's not evil to own a car, to have plumbing in your house, to take out a student loan. Jesus did not want us to remain uneducated or to reject modern medicine. Thanks to those who did NOT live as Roush would want - we have things like libraries and life-saving antibiotics for the price of a deli sandwich.
I must also add that the story of Henry, and Roush's glorification of it, strikes me as racist. Looking back to the pre-industrial age in America with reverence is only something a white man can do. Specifically, a white man. I didn't even look up Roush's race, but I have zero doubt he's a white man. Henry is the head of a complementarian, nuclear household, living life by working the farm, and being content with dominoes over candlelight as the respite after a long day. And living on land stolen from Native Americans likely never crossed his mind.
Again, I'm glad I read the book, and I think Roush's point still landed with me and left me with a net-positive in my perspective. But I cannot recommend this book to anyone. Time has not been kind to it.
November 18, 2017
This book was great, I would almost classify it as a modern tragedy. Henry is a simple man living a simple life and here comes progress to spoil it all. Cars and electricity and factories, all creeping in. When I think about this novel I can't help but be reminded of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their song "All I can do is write about it". Progress and one man's fight to hold it all together. I read this several years ago but it has stuck with me a long time. 4 stars.
January 29, 2010
Wonderful book about the consequences of convenience.
August 6, 2012
This is one of my all time favorite novels. It is very simple writing but a great commentary on how industrialism has changed our society.
April 16, 2009
This book is great! Very simple, but powerful. Really raises the question about how the 'good life' has been modified and changed by industrialism and whether that is actually a good thing for us as humans.
December 11, 2011
This book I read to Greg on our way home from WI. He would not give it 4 stars, but I really liked it. There was quite a bit of truth in it about how involved we can get with the temporal things of life and totally lose track of what really matters.
February 2, 2026
A thought provoking book for sure.
Pros:
Roush causes me to evaluate the various technologies in my life in terms of freedoms gained and lost. I am sure there are some technologies that do not improve the quality of my life or help me connect with God. Roush also rejects debt/ credit systems— he is like an Amish Dave Ramsey.
Cons:
The point is overstated. A mass return to agrarian life won’t solve our spiritual problems. Roush seems to reject the concept of the “city” as altogether sinful (with the exception of Jerusalem). The main character seems to lack any financial discretion, and makes a frustratingly long series of unwise decisions.
Cal Newports book “Digital Minimalism” would be a more productive read for most people seeking to evaluate whether certain technologies actually improve their lives.
And yet, as a period piece from before the internet world, this short read still pushed me to healthy introspection. So I am glad I read it.
Pros:
Roush causes me to evaluate the various technologies in my life in terms of freedoms gained and lost. I am sure there are some technologies that do not improve the quality of my life or help me connect with God. Roush also rejects debt/ credit systems— he is like an Amish Dave Ramsey.
Cons:
The point is overstated. A mass return to agrarian life won’t solve our spiritual problems. Roush seems to reject the concept of the “city” as altogether sinful (with the exception of Jerusalem). The main character seems to lack any financial discretion, and makes a frustratingly long series of unwise decisions.
Cal Newports book “Digital Minimalism” would be a more productive read for most people seeking to evaluate whether certain technologies actually improve their lives.
And yet, as a period piece from before the internet world, this short read still pushed me to healthy introspection. So I am glad I read it.
January 4, 2017
Leaves a good message and puts Henry's perspective perfectly. One of the books I would keep to read again or use for reference.
January 14, 2026
The description of Henry (and his family's) lifestyle was really sweet. It's a simple life brought into the 20th century from earlier times. It is fruitful, peaceful, happy, and abundant in producing all the needs of the family: clean water, fresh air, housing, entertainment, good food, and health. The family is not isolated completely as members of a small village where everyone knows his/her neighbors and townsfolk. Progress in the form of, first, road improvement, then traffic, then switching from the wagon and team to a car, electricity and ALL the labor saving devices, plumbing, and so on come to Henry and his family. Henry agrees reluctantly but moves with the times.
Henry was completely destroyed by the advent of progress and its constant need for him to spend all his life-time earning money to pay off credit accounts for things he didn't even want and were keeping him from living the life he DID want and love. For people who have never been producers and were born into total consumerist life will be shocked by how fast a life of contentment can be replaced and destroyed by materialist consumption to have "the good things in life" as the book says.
Every single thing we pay for most of us had to work away from home to earn. We trade our hours for dollars to pay for things we don't produce but must consume. Most of us were born into this. We have no model of what it was like to produce.
Henry and his family and his land were already producing everything they needed to consume. The little they did not produce, for example, their clothing, was easy to purchase from the small amount of money earned from what was produced on the land or even traded for with eggs, milk, etc. The book is about the soul-sucking madness of total dependence the Great Society and how it could change people who were independent into slaves of that society: consumers of everything and producers of nothing.
It's timely message cycles in and out of time. The Arts and Crafts movement of the 1880s, the back-to-the-land movement of the 1920s, the hippies, and now the homesteaders. There will always be people who feel that complete dependence via consumption is a sickening of the human spirit and community. This book makes the transition from production to consumption evident though Henry's journey. It does not have a happy ending. How could it?
I gave it four stars because it's a good book to read, but not a great book in a literary sense. And also because the highly Christian and scripture-based explanation of man vs. progress for the last few sections of the book is not my cup of tea. If nothing else, if it is a roadmap from containment into madness, that same road could be followed backwards into a life of production and peace of mind and time for the ones you love.
Henry was completely destroyed by the advent of progress and its constant need for him to spend all his life-time earning money to pay off credit accounts for things he didn't even want and were keeping him from living the life he DID want and love. For people who have never been producers and were born into total consumerist life will be shocked by how fast a life of contentment can be replaced and destroyed by materialist consumption to have "the good things in life" as the book says.
Every single thing we pay for most of us had to work away from home to earn. We trade our hours for dollars to pay for things we don't produce but must consume. Most of us were born into this. We have no model of what it was like to produce.
Henry and his family and his land were already producing everything they needed to consume. The little they did not produce, for example, their clothing, was easy to purchase from the small amount of money earned from what was produced on the land or even traded for with eggs, milk, etc. The book is about the soul-sucking madness of total dependence the Great Society and how it could change people who were independent into slaves of that society: consumers of everything and producers of nothing.
It's timely message cycles in and out of time. The Arts and Crafts movement of the 1880s, the back-to-the-land movement of the 1920s, the hippies, and now the homesteaders. There will always be people who feel that complete dependence via consumption is a sickening of the human spirit and community. This book makes the transition from production to consumption evident though Henry's journey. It does not have a happy ending. How could it?
I gave it four stars because it's a good book to read, but not a great book in a literary sense. And also because the highly Christian and scripture-based explanation of man vs. progress for the last few sections of the book is not my cup of tea. If nothing else, if it is a roadmap from containment into madness, that same road could be followed backwards into a life of production and peace of mind and time for the ones you love.
June 4, 2017
I didn't give it 5 stars because it's not for everybody, and it might be depressing to some as it was to me. It made me think, reflect, ponder, and wish for a simpler life, the life that Henry had before 'progress' and 'change' entered his life ... and when his life become more complicated in search of the good things that Americans long for and are 'entitled' to, then there seems to be no point of return, no happiness in simpler times, and ultimately, no HOPE. If that's progress, count me out; I'll stay a backwoods hillbilly if it means trading contentment for the rat race. Poor Henry ... a good man caught in downward spiral ... God Help Us All if this is our story as well ....
November 21, 2021
This is one of the most important books of fiction ever written. Most of the world won't read it, or won't have time to read it, but this is one of the most important books of fiction ever written because it is not really fiction at all. This is life in the west. And it's best description of the enemy in the Bible referred to as "the world" that I've ever read.
Second time through this book and I can't recommend it enough. Henry is so many of us. The first four chapters is paradise, the next 12 chapters are some of the hardest I've ever endured which concludes Henry's story and the last 5 chapters is an essay on the story written by the author.
Read this. Respond to it.
Second time through this book and I can't recommend it enough. Henry is so many of us. The first four chapters is paradise, the next 12 chapters are some of the hardest I've ever endured which concludes Henry's story and the last 5 chapters is an essay on the story written by the author.
Read this. Respond to it.
June 17, 2019
This book is heartbreaking because I recognized a lot of my own life in it. How much simpler things were when I was younger and when certain things in life weren’t as advanced. I would love to weed things out of my life, slowly and get back to a simpler life with less stress. I’d also like to work on having less debt in my life as you don’t realize the chains that bind you when you live a life of buy now, pay later. My heart broke for Henry time and time again and I wanted to intervene on his behalf so much.
September 29, 2017
I enjoyed this book though at times I thought the author was being a little over the top when it came to the pressures of modern life and their effect on the family unit. I eventually decided it was a pretty deliberate use of exaggeration to drive the point of the book home. I think it'a good read for any Christian and the author makes a good scriptural argument to support his story.
August 15, 2018
This book was lent to me by a friend who is very religious. I was coasting along with Henry, relating to what he was going thru, and then wham-----the end of the book was very religious (no surprise, I realize). I'm trying to come up with a different ending for us non-religious people.
December 10, 2019
A nice short read with a practical application that a simple lifestyle is better than the pursuit for more. A bit over simplified and somewhat unrealistic to make it a great read.
January 16, 2023
One of the best books I've ever read in my entire life. Everyone should read it. Cuts deep.
January 1, 2025
Religious propaganda disguised as an anecdote on American Life.
January 5, 2026
The best part was the author's thoughts after the book was finished.
December 15, 2015
Poor old Henry. He was satisfied with his simple, rural lifestyle. But when progress marched by his front door, he finally decided to join the masses for the betterment of his family. He discovered that giving up his lifestyle for something better came with unintended consequences.
Christian based with a touch of humour (I thought humour), I've recommended this to all my kids and grandkids, to help prepare them for "keeping up with the Joneses."
Christian based with a touch of humour (I thought humour), I've recommended this to all my kids and grandkids, to help prepare them for "keeping up with the Joneses."
August 13, 2015
A look at the negative effects of "progress." Henry lives in relative peace and obscurity until electricity, paved roads, automobiles, and society come to Chamberstown.
Roush makes some very valid points regarding how our entertainment and work can all get in the way of our relationship with God and the true things of life.
He also finishes out with some very Judeo-Christian eschatology.
Roush makes some very valid points regarding how our entertainment and work can all get in the way of our relationship with God and the true things of life.
He also finishes out with some very Judeo-Christian eschatology.
February 28, 2013
the parable is excellent and worth reading. I could have done without the interpretive diatribe after the conclusion. take that away, and this probably gets another star.
January 2, 2026
really made me think about society and how much technology has evolved. really wish more people would read it!
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May 2, 2018This was not a "bad" book, per say. I actually received this from my pastor at church, who loaned out twelve or so books to the congregation to read and after we finish, would like to know what we though about Henry and the Great Society.
I can say this book definitely gave me a whole lot to think about and not just about God because God is never actually mentioned but once or twice in the actual story but about life in general. Although once Henry's story is complete and you read the last few chapters, you can see that He's there in the background of things so to speak, at least, it was that way to me.
Just know if you read this, for whatever reason: whether required or not, it will make you think. It's not a long book but I had to put it down for a few hours before I started again. Our pastor's wife said it was depressing and I can agree, another lady said she felt convicted while her husband said everyone needs to read Henry and the Great Society. I don't necessarily agree with that but that's just me. My grandmother says that it was pretty much about her and my grandfather when they were young and I can pick out pieces of the book that make me think about my parents and what they've told me about when they were growing up. There's something in it that most everyone can... identify isn't the word but can connect, maybe to others that they know, older family members or friends of parents, grandparents, etc...
If you're looking for one "hard" book to read this year, whether you believe in God or not, pick up Henry and the Great Society.
I can say this book definitely gave me a whole lot to think about and not just about God because God is never actually mentioned but once or twice in the actual story but about life in general. Although once Henry's story is complete and you read the last few chapters, you can see that He's there in the background of things so to speak, at least, it was that way to me.
Just know if you read this, for whatever reason: whether required or not, it will make you think. It's not a long book but I had to put it down for a few hours before I started again. Our pastor's wife said it was depressing and I can agree, another lady said she felt convicted while her husband said everyone needs to read Henry and the Great Society. I don't necessarily agree with that but that's just me. My grandmother says that it was pretty much about her and my grandfather when they were young and I can pick out pieces of the book that make me think about my parents and what they've told me about when they were growing up. There's something in it that most everyone can... identify isn't the word but can connect, maybe to others that they know, older family members or friends of parents, grandparents, etc...
If you're looking for one "hard" book to read this year, whether you believe in God or not, pick up Henry and the Great Society.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews