2022-02-19
The prolific writer and activist finds some of the causes of our societal meltdown in the idyllic suburbs of his youth.
“We were better consumers than citizens,” writes McKibben of his generation, the original counterculturalists who mounted rebellions against the war in Vietnam, racial injustice, and inequalities of many kinds. What happened? Well, those suburban kids took their detachments from cities and communities and extended them into the hyperindividualism of today, its governing motto “you’re not the boss of me.” McKibben capably picks apart long-ago history to find present themes. He looks deeply into the role of his hometown, Lexington, Massachusetts, in firing the revolutionary “shot heard ’round the world” only to discover that even there, slavery existed until well into the 19th century. The town may have been one of the first to honor Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday even though it was, as McKibben writes, “overwhelmingly white,” but it was also sharply divided in climacteric moments such as the Vietnam War. The author locates many of these divisions in the present culture, many owing to the “generation that grew up in those suburbs in those years.” Sure, they may have played in the same creek and the same fields, but many of them voted for Donald Trump and have zero interest in paying higher taxes to address issues like the climate crisis. McKibben finds hope in the thought that some of his generation’s contrarian ardor can be rekindled, which is pleasing yet a little unconvincing. Even he allows, in this well-constructed narrative, that the odds are long. “For me,” he writes, “the scariest thing about the last forty years, even more than the rising temperature, was the ascension of the libertarian idea that the individual matters far more than the society an individual inhabits.”
A reasonable if perhaps quixotic plea for the boomers to rise from the couch and get back to work fixing their messes.
03/28/2022
The dark heart of American racism, alienation, and environmental destruction lies in suburbia, according to this anguished jeremiad. McKibben (Falter) spotlights his 1960s boyhood hometown of Lexington, Mass., birthplace of the American Revolution and now an affluent Boston suburb, as the flip side of the American dream: full of high-minded liberalism, but careful to keep low-income, racially mixed housing out of its lily-white confines; a former bastion of Puritan religious communality now corroded by individualism and spiritual consumerism; and a redoubt of the fossil fuel–guzzling suburban economy that’s heating the climate. McKibben’s critique of suburbia is a familiar one, updated with contemporary twists. He presents a convincing case against suburban zoning codes that essentially ban affordable housing; less cogently, he calls for reparations to redistribute wealth accrued from racist housing policies of the past (while admitting that he’s “not sure” what form they should take) and claims that his fellow boomers are “about to be the first generation to leave the world a worse place than when we found it,” ignoring the steady, global rise in living standards of recent decades. Sharp autobiographical sketches and social commentary combined with too much ill-considered hand-wringing make this a mixed bag. (May)
If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison. This sparkling little diamond of a book illuminates the all-American boyhood and education of a radical Christian environmentalist in love with a broken world that, frankly speaking, may or may not exist at all a century from now. May McKibben's golden pen continue to flow swiftly and conquer—with both love and reason—the dangerous enemies of human civilization.“
—Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-8)
“This is a book that every American who cares about democracy and truth needs to read. . . So much went wrong over the fifty-plus years McKibben traces, and he follows the lines with care and sympathy.“
—HBT News
“Plainspoken, direct, conversational, and inspiring, Bill McKibben offers us generous insight into who he is and how he has been shaped by his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs. We see through inner and outer choices, struggles, and influences, why one of the world's most effective and humble leaders in the climate justice movement committed himself to an activist's life on behalf of a warming planet. The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon is more than a memoir, it is a bow to the power of social justice movements and a smart and savvy historical reflection on what has brought us to this crucible moment of climate collapse. Bill McKibben is an every-day hero who continues to show us not only what is possible, but necessary to our survival, the survival of our democracy, and all life in the places we call home.“
—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing
“What went wrong with America in the 1970s? In this searching book, Bill McKibben wrestles with a generation that lost its way, and why, and how to find the way back.”
—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
“Bill McKibben has written a great American memoir, using the prism of his own life to reflect on the most important dynamics in our society. Bill McKibben’s writing is poignant, engrossing and revealing. His message is a clarion call for a generation to understand what happened to their American Dream, and to fight for our common future.”
—Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: How Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
“Bill McKibben is such a heroic and consequential leader in the fight for the climate on behalf of all humankind, it's easy to lose sight of his humanity. As usual, this book is a thoughtful critique of wrong turns America has taken, but this time refreshingly and revealingly intertwined with his personal story. As a fellow former suburban boy who has also tried hard to figure out ‘what the hell happened,’ The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon was like listening to a wise old pal preach.”
—Kurt Andersen, author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America
“McKibben's formative experiences, described so elegantly here, led him to devote himself to 'a life fighting battles that can't be won.' But he will not quit. The final chapter pins the tail on the donkey, our nation's prosperous boomer generation ('the first generation to leave the world a worse place than we found it'), who now must pay for the epic deficits created during the forty-year Reagan wrong-way revolution. He ends with a plea to his fellow boomers who 'have the chance to partially redeem some sense of our history as Americans... This kind of redemption rests not on suppressing the truth of our past, but in engaging and overcoming it.' Amen, preacher McKibben. Amen.“
—Rain Taxi Review of Books
“Throughout this book, McKibben harnesses statistics that leap off the page. These have a very different impact from data in bureaucratic reports or a typical news bulletin, because he provides his documentation in combination with stories.“
—Seven Days
“We do inhabit the same world, after all, and to see it for a while through Bill McKibben’s eyes is good medicine.“
—First Things
“The prolific writer and activist finds some of the causes of our societal meltdown in the idyllic suburbs of his youth. . . . McKibben capably picks apart long-ago history to find present themes.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Adept at factual storytelling and connecting the dots, earnest, caring, and funny, McKibben dovetails personal reckonings with an astute elucidation of our social justice and environmental crises, arguing wisely that facing the truth about our past is the only way forward to a more just and sustainable future.”
—Booklist, starred review
12/01/2021
Award-winning environmental activist McKibben (Falter) offers more than memoir as he reflects on growing up middle class in 1960s-1970s Lexington, MA, convinced that the United States, however imperfect, was a great country growing even greater. Now, with overconsumption fueling climate change, a new understanding of how racism has shaped U.S. history, and religion a divisive rather than unifying force, he ponders what went wrong. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben’s lifetime. Listeners first see him as a proud American teen who guides tours on the Revolution in his hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts. But as he grows older, he observes continued racism—including inequality of income, housing, education, and more—and cries out WHY? Martin deftly delivers McKibben’s biting humor and sarcasm, along with his moving quotes from studies on racism, including the unholy relationship between American Christianity and its legacy of racism. McKibben finally determines that unless drastic measures, such as reparations, are taken, Blacks will never move toward equality with whites. Most effective is McKibben’s confrontation of Baby Boomers and others. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben’s lifetime. Listeners first see him as a proud American teen who guides tours on the Revolution in his hometown of Lexington, Massachusetts. But as he grows older, he observes continued racism—including inequality of income, housing, education, and more—and cries out WHY? Martin deftly delivers McKibben’s biting humor and sarcasm, along with his moving quotes from studies on racism, including the unholy relationship between American Christianity and its legacy of racism. McKibben finally determines that unless drastic measures, such as reparations, are taken, Blacks will never move toward equality with whites. Most effective is McKibben’s confrontation of Baby Boomers and others. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
