Whole Earth Review

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Whole Earth Review is the former name of a magazine once known as CoEvolution Quarterly and now known as Whole Earth.

Their website states

Issues 1 - 43 are CoEvolution Quarterly

Issues 44 -89 are Whole Earth Review

Issues 90 and following are Whole Earth Magazine

CoEvolution Quarterly was founded by gadfly editor Stewart Brand in 1974, with proceeds from The Whole Earth Catalog. Brand (trained as a biologist, artist, and designer) also founded the Point Foundation, and is now active in the Global Business Network.

Whole Earth Review's motto was Access to tools and ideas (as was the motto of the Catalog), with "tools" being very broadly defined, so as to include maps, books, software, and other extensions of the mind. The Whole Earth Catalog was created to serve, originally, the practical needs of communes in California, Oregon, and the American Southwest, in addition to independent designers, inventors, do-it-yourselfers, and youthful experimenters of all sorts. The Catalog, like Brand's other publications, had a tone that differed from left-leaning publications of the era; Brand was libertarian in his outlook and seemed supportive of private enterprise (especially when small-scale, fresh, and creative), and - while interested in change - believed in a complex pattern of evolution beyond any specific group's control, and was somewhat skeptical of programs of social change. CoEvolution Quarterly was a 1974 off-shoot periodical publication of the Catalog, and was later renamed Whole Earth Review (1985).

Whole Earth had a special role in promoting alternative technology or appropriate technology. In deciding to publish full-length articles on specific topics in natural sciences, invention, arts, etc., Stewart Brand founded a journal aimed primarily at the educated layperson. The industrial designer and educator J. Baldwin served as the technology editor. Tool and book reviews were in abundance, and ecological and technology topics were interspersed with articles treating social and community subjects. One of the journal's recurring themes was “the commons” (a thing, institution or geographic space having to do with the community as a whole), and the related “tragedy of the commons”.

Notably, the journal espoused some sensible and sage avenues of thought, such as architect Christopher Alexander's approach to building and planning. Yet the magazine could remain a lively multi-disciplinary meetingplace that didn't smack at all of academia. In everything, Stewart Brand seemed to display a trust in citizens' ability to make good choices, humane and inclined toward sustainability, if provided with good information.

Stewart Brand and the later editors invited reviews of books and tools from experts in specific fields, to be approached as though they were writing a letter to a friend. In this, he adopted a technique which editor Byron Dobell had suggested to Tom Wolfe, early in the latter’s career, a method which had started a whole literary genre called “the new journalism” known for its intimacy and impact. Whole Earth editors Kevin Kelly and Howard Rheingold both went on to become influential figures in technology.

Besides having a social focus and interest in personal computing, Whole Earth always made efforts to be at the forefront of technological innovation, being the first to publish articles about speculations on space colonization, molecular nanotechnology and the technological singularity.

Whole Earth was one of the journals that, in effect, bridged the gap of what has been called the two cultures (science and the humanities). This was an inheritance from the Whole Earth Catalog, which had, for instance, run a review of Gerald Heard's work.

In 1985, Whole Earth also established the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (also known as "The WELL"), one of the pioneering online communities on the planet. Initially The WELL was a dial-up BBS, though eventually it became reachable internationally via Compuserve's Packet Network, and since 1994 it has been a destination on the Internet.

Whole Earth is now defunct. The articles from their last unpublished issue (#111, Spring, 2003, edited by Alex Steffen) were put on the wholeearth.com website here.