Title: Walden Two
Author: B. F. Skinner
Dates Read: May - July 2002
Grade: B
Review:
| This was one of those books that I had heard so much about and had always wanted to read. I finally got the opportunity as I was browsing my grandmother's bookshelf and found a copy that had belonged to my dad when he was my age. This book is a depiction of a modern-day (or at least "modern-day" in 1948) utopian society based on Thoreau's Walden of the nineteenth-century Transcendentalist movement. Written as a narrative, the book is basically an outline of Skinner's behaviorism and how it could be used to create a form of heaven on earth. It brings up some interesting critiques of contemporary society, and very few topics are left untouched. The story probably had a little more relevance when it was written than it does today because it draws some interesting comparisons to the Fascism of Hitler and Mussolini. This is a great explanation of behaviorism, but don't look for a very exciting story. |