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Ecotopia #1-2
The Complete Ecotopia
Published in hardcover for the first time in forty years, two classics of environmental science fiction
“One of the most important utopian novels of the twentieth century that still has very important lessons to teach us. It will always convey to perfection the wild optimism of that a feeling we need to recapture, adjusted for our time.”— Kim Stanley Robinson on Ecotopia
Collected in one handsome volume for the first time, The Complete Ecotopia presents an early classic of environmental science fiction in its entirety. Ecotopia (1975) and Ecotopia Emerging (1981), which paint detailed portraits of a healthier earth and a happier society, became foundational texts for a new wave of environmental activists, and they still contain an abundance of ideas yet to be realized. Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopian saga anticipated climate fiction by more than a decade, sold approximately one million copies and was translated into one dozen languages, and predicted a host of innovations running from C-SPAN to widespread recycling. This edition includes two retrospective essays by the author, as well as an updated foreword by Heyday founder Malcolm Margolin. An important document of utopian ideas from the sixties and seventies, The Complete Ecotopia is also a stimulating read for environmentalists today—one that tells a bold, inventive, and adventurous story.
“One of the most important utopian novels of the twentieth century that still has very important lessons to teach us. It will always convey to perfection the wild optimism of that a feeling we need to recapture, adjusted for our time.”— Kim Stanley Robinson on Ecotopia
Collected in one handsome volume for the first time, The Complete Ecotopia presents an early classic of environmental science fiction in its entirety. Ecotopia (1975) and Ecotopia Emerging (1981), which paint detailed portraits of a healthier earth and a happier society, became foundational texts for a new wave of environmental activists, and they still contain an abundance of ideas yet to be realized. Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopian saga anticipated climate fiction by more than a decade, sold approximately one million copies and was translated into one dozen languages, and predicted a host of innovations running from C-SPAN to widespread recycling. This edition includes two retrospective essays by the author, as well as an updated foreword by Heyday founder Malcolm Margolin. An important document of utopian ideas from the sixties and seventies, The Complete Ecotopia is also a stimulating read for environmentalists today—one that tells a bold, inventive, and adventurous story.
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Published December 7, 2021
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About the author
Ernest Callenbach
117 books54 followersErnest Callenbach was an American author, film critic, editor, and simple living adherent. He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel Ecotopia.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 20, 2022
Everyone read this. This is so important ♡
June 7, 2025
It takes some pretty big avocados to write one--let alone two-utopian novels. I give this author props for his ambition and vision, if not his literary talent.
These books are equal parts prophetic, an amalgamation of hippie platitudes, tropes and cliches (leaning heavily towards male fantasy), and uniquely visionary. Ecotopia, I have to remind myself, despite its weighty themes, is not the work of an ecology, philosophy, or social sciences scholar, but a film critic. All the more reason for us to tip our hats to him for his visionary breadth. Unfortunately, he lacks the talent to pull it off.
Although I do not think Callenbach plagiarized Aldous Huxley's Island, there are a few striking parallels between Huxley's final, optimistic island utopia (the antidote to what he envisioned in Brave New World), and Callenbach's Ecotopia.
Ecotopia takes places in California and in a vague outline of the Pacific North West, United States. Huxley's Island takes place in Pala, a fictional tropical, South Pacific island. Both are isolationist, hermit republics that restrict entry to outsiders. Both feature a journalist protagonist ostensibly seeking to write an in-depth expose of a closed-off society, and the protagonist reporter even has the same first name in each book. Each government is centered on ecological sustainability, but while Huxley's focus is on spirituality, and the salvation of the human soul, Ecotopia is offered more as a kind of fuck you to American capitalism and overconsumption.
Like Island, Ecotopia is social philosophy delivered in novelized form. Hence, the characters have less depth and the ideas and themes receive more attention. Huxley's utopia is far more subtle and nuanced than Callenbach's rough and tumble, anti-American yet American-influenced ideal society.
Interestingly, both works bookend one of the most unique time periods in American history. Huxley wrote Island in 1962, after being part of a very select, elite group of intellectuals who dabbled with psychedelics in the late 50s. Ecotopia was written and takes place at the conclusion of the countercultural revolution in 1975 that Huxley (somewhat reluctantly) helped begin.
Whether he used Huxley's ideas or not, Huxley surely would have approved of Callenbach’s society having adulthood rites of passage (though exclusively for men and exclusively centering on violence, it seems) that also involve the use of a fictional intoxicating beverage. But in Huxley's Island, the use of the invented soma for vision-seeking purposes and preparation for adulthood during somber and secretive rites is a world away from the public spectacle of Callenbach's "games" in Ecotopia, where boys become men by drinking an anesthetizing brew, which would appear to have more in common with beer than LSD, then running at each other with spears.
What would Huxley have thought of the empty promiscuity and Callenbach’s obsession with free love? We will never know, but we do know that Huxley thought of psychedelic use as sacraments deserving respect. He loathed Timothy Leary’s reckless and infantile promotion of widespread recreational LSD use. Maybe he correctly intuited that Timothy Leary (who Richard Nixon famously called “the most dangerous man in America”) as the single person most capable of destroying all the promise conferred by psychedelics—which is exactly who he became.
One sees echoes of an ugly, non-idealized 60s revolution in Callenbach’s work, with its Synanon-like group screaming matches masquerading as accountability, insipid, naval-gazey dialogue, relationship melodrama, casual conflation of rape and rough sex. The most consistent plot element involves the protagonist’s ceaseless quest to get laid, and which of his mistresses, concubines, and girlfriends he wants to pick from, almost like changes of clothing, to suit his moods. This aspect of Ecotopia would only be acceptable today—let alone ideal—by the standards of a Tate-inspired incel misogynist podcaster. This theme takes up so much space in the book that one might subtitle it, “...Ecotopian Chicks Are Easy.” There is nothing wrong with valuing sex and openness, but...yuck.
Still, at a time when home computing was emergent and the internet nonexistent, Callenbach offered his own vision of many things we take for granted today: print on demand publishing, wind and solar power, widespread recycling, zero-waste initiatives, and battery-powered electric vehicles (oh those innocent pre-Tesla years!). His conceptualizations of future sustainability and culture change are sometimes opaque, but sometimes crystal clear. Unfortunately, the prequel to Ecotopia (written and published six years later) is deadly boring; it takes the form of one long endless committee meeting, filled with innumerable prosaic details, and it focuses exclusively on the political science dynamics of secession and independence, largely without exploring or grappling with the ideas it presents.
The Complete Ecotopia also includes two footnotes Callenbach penned in the 21st Century, one on the eve of his impending death. They are sad, pessimistic, and realistic attempts to reconcile his vision with end stage consumer capitalism. While Callenbach may not have identified as a nihilist or an accelerationist, he definitely endorses the destruction of our present society as a way to save both humanity and our planet.
Despite the emphasis in the prequel and vague mention of the fictional “Helicopter War,” the revolution required to separate Ecotopia and America (as Callenbach conceives it) seems very quick and painless in contrast to the history of American imperialism. Callenbach’s easy path to Ecotopia is believable only if you ignore our government’s actions during our wars in the Philippines and Vietnam, to say nothing of our own Civil War. Maybe Callenbach’s pessimism betrays the fact that he was a bit naïve, or felt that in the aftermath of the collective consciousness expansion of the 60s, we really would be able to start new societies simply by deploying credible, persuasive arguments rather than guns, blood, and revolution. Of course, in order to do that, America would need to be more than a democracy in name only. The author can be forgiven for confusing that wish with reality.
While Aldous Huxley’s Island is a better book with a more coherent vision, Ecotopia is still a must-read for the student of both modern applied utopian ideas as well as the then-emerging interdisciplinary fields of ecological psychology, bioregionalism, and a budding Cascadian identity.
I have no doubt that if there is an afterlife, Ernest Callenbach and Aldous Huxley are having a drink somewhere within it, debating whether, if, and how Western society will ever find balance, stability, or enlightenment this side of nirvana.
These books are equal parts prophetic, an amalgamation of hippie platitudes, tropes and cliches (leaning heavily towards male fantasy), and uniquely visionary. Ecotopia, I have to remind myself, despite its weighty themes, is not the work of an ecology, philosophy, or social sciences scholar, but a film critic. All the more reason for us to tip our hats to him for his visionary breadth. Unfortunately, he lacks the talent to pull it off.
Although I do not think Callenbach plagiarized Aldous Huxley's Island, there are a few striking parallels between Huxley's final, optimistic island utopia (the antidote to what he envisioned in Brave New World), and Callenbach's Ecotopia.
Ecotopia takes places in California and in a vague outline of the Pacific North West, United States. Huxley's Island takes place in Pala, a fictional tropical, South Pacific island. Both are isolationist, hermit republics that restrict entry to outsiders. Both feature a journalist protagonist ostensibly seeking to write an in-depth expose of a closed-off society, and the protagonist reporter even has the same first name in each book. Each government is centered on ecological sustainability, but while Huxley's focus is on spirituality, and the salvation of the human soul, Ecotopia is offered more as a kind of fuck you to American capitalism and overconsumption.
Like Island, Ecotopia is social philosophy delivered in novelized form. Hence, the characters have less depth and the ideas and themes receive more attention. Huxley's utopia is far more subtle and nuanced than Callenbach's rough and tumble, anti-American yet American-influenced ideal society.
Interestingly, both works bookend one of the most unique time periods in American history. Huxley wrote Island in 1962, after being part of a very select, elite group of intellectuals who dabbled with psychedelics in the late 50s. Ecotopia was written and takes place at the conclusion of the countercultural revolution in 1975 that Huxley (somewhat reluctantly) helped begin.
Whether he used Huxley's ideas or not, Huxley surely would have approved of Callenbach’s society having adulthood rites of passage (though exclusively for men and exclusively centering on violence, it seems) that also involve the use of a fictional intoxicating beverage. But in Huxley's Island, the use of the invented soma for vision-seeking purposes and preparation for adulthood during somber and secretive rites is a world away from the public spectacle of Callenbach's "games" in Ecotopia, where boys become men by drinking an anesthetizing brew, which would appear to have more in common with beer than LSD, then running at each other with spears.
What would Huxley have thought of the empty promiscuity and Callenbach’s obsession with free love? We will never know, but we do know that Huxley thought of psychedelic use as sacraments deserving respect. He loathed Timothy Leary’s reckless and infantile promotion of widespread recreational LSD use. Maybe he correctly intuited that Timothy Leary (who Richard Nixon famously called “the most dangerous man in America”) as the single person most capable of destroying all the promise conferred by psychedelics—which is exactly who he became.
One sees echoes of an ugly, non-idealized 60s revolution in Callenbach’s work, with its Synanon-like group screaming matches masquerading as accountability, insipid, naval-gazey dialogue, relationship melodrama, casual conflation of rape and rough sex. The most consistent plot element involves the protagonist’s ceaseless quest to get laid, and which of his mistresses, concubines, and girlfriends he wants to pick from, almost like changes of clothing, to suit his moods. This aspect of Ecotopia would only be acceptable today—let alone ideal—by the standards of a Tate-inspired incel misogynist podcaster. This theme takes up so much space in the book that one might subtitle it, “...Ecotopian Chicks Are Easy.” There is nothing wrong with valuing sex and openness, but...yuck.
Still, at a time when home computing was emergent and the internet nonexistent, Callenbach offered his own vision of many things we take for granted today: print on demand publishing, wind and solar power, widespread recycling, zero-waste initiatives, and battery-powered electric vehicles (oh those innocent pre-Tesla years!). His conceptualizations of future sustainability and culture change are sometimes opaque, but sometimes crystal clear. Unfortunately, the prequel to Ecotopia (written and published six years later) is deadly boring; it takes the form of one long endless committee meeting, filled with innumerable prosaic details, and it focuses exclusively on the political science dynamics of secession and independence, largely without exploring or grappling with the ideas it presents.
The Complete Ecotopia also includes two footnotes Callenbach penned in the 21st Century, one on the eve of his impending death. They are sad, pessimistic, and realistic attempts to reconcile his vision with end stage consumer capitalism. While Callenbach may not have identified as a nihilist or an accelerationist, he definitely endorses the destruction of our present society as a way to save both humanity and our planet.
Despite the emphasis in the prequel and vague mention of the fictional “Helicopter War,” the revolution required to separate Ecotopia and America (as Callenbach conceives it) seems very quick and painless in contrast to the history of American imperialism. Callenbach’s easy path to Ecotopia is believable only if you ignore our government’s actions during our wars in the Philippines and Vietnam, to say nothing of our own Civil War. Maybe Callenbach’s pessimism betrays the fact that he was a bit naïve, or felt that in the aftermath of the collective consciousness expansion of the 60s, we really would be able to start new societies simply by deploying credible, persuasive arguments rather than guns, blood, and revolution. Of course, in order to do that, America would need to be more than a democracy in name only. The author can be forgiven for confusing that wish with reality.
While Aldous Huxley’s Island is a better book with a more coherent vision, Ecotopia is still a must-read for the student of both modern applied utopian ideas as well as the then-emerging interdisciplinary fields of ecological psychology, bioregionalism, and a budding Cascadian identity.
I have no doubt that if there is an afterlife, Ernest Callenbach and Aldous Huxley are having a drink somewhere within it, debating whether, if, and how Western society will ever find balance, stability, or enlightenment this side of nirvana.
April 4, 2022
Equal parts grounded scientific research and environmental stewardship, and baffling commie gobbledygook. Very Mixed feelings.
April 28, 2025
Many of my critics are in the foreword.
The oversimplification of non-white cultures and the problematic language about sex (I don't mean the swearing).
Overall it was a fun read. Not deeply profound by modern standards but perhaps it was extraordinary at the time. I enjoyed the attention to detail.
Ecotopia was the best book by far, Ecotopia Emerging was a interesting explanation of how things came to be, but it was not written in an easy-to-read format.
The afterword was interesting as I had to keep checking when it was written. Callenbach's commentary in 2012 feels very apt to 2025.
The oversimplification of non-white cultures and the problematic language about sex (I don't mean the swearing).
Overall it was a fun read. Not deeply profound by modern standards but perhaps it was extraordinary at the time. I enjoyed the attention to detail.
Ecotopia was the best book by far, Ecotopia Emerging was a interesting explanation of how things came to be, but it was not written in an easy-to-read format.
The afterword was interesting as I had to keep checking when it was written. Callenbach's commentary in 2012 feels very apt to 2025.
December 19, 2023
Very intelligent book - you see the level of research in it and you can make a clear picture of what this new society would look like. The writing in itself is a bit dry though, and the character’s personality is either not nuanced enough or maybe reflects a past mindset which can sometimes be a bit annoying. In any case I think this book is worth reading, it’s not every day that an author goes to the length of rebuilding in detail a whole societal construct!
July 31, 2023
Crazy that the first book was published in 1975! This series is so, so relevant today for various reasons.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews