Retroculture: Taking America Back, by William S. Lind (Arktos Media; 212 pp., $18.95). One of the editors of this publication practically laughed in my face when I recently proclaimed myself a “city girl.”
“You’re not a city girl,” he snorted, “you are Little House on the Prairie all the way!” Had he read Bill Lind’s latest, he would have found a more apt descriptor for yours truly.
Lind pins the source of America’s problems on its heightened emphasis on the self. This emphasis began in the 1960s, when that decade’s tumultuous generation overthrew the standards of good taste, style, and manners. The years since have been filled with crudity, busyness, and moral breakdown.
Americans exhausted with a self-focused lifestyle are beginning to look to the past for a way out of their current miserable state, Lind writes. He offers practical ways the average American might embrace old architecture, fashion, entertainment, and travel to adopt his “retroculture” lifestyle. I found his insights refreshing, unique, and full of wholesome simplicity. They provide hope to souls longing for Bedford Falls while living in Pottersville.
Yet this lifestyle isn’t based on externals alone, with adults playing dress up and living in a dreamworld of nostalgia. Rather, retroculture is what one might call a matter of the heart, a contentment which...