PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Rod Janzen is a Distinguished Scholar and professor of history at Fresno Pacific University. He is the author of The Hutterites in North America and The Prairie People: Forgotten Anabaptists.
Authoritative and highly readable. -Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times A most offbeat and interesting work by an historian well versed in the history of American utopianism. -Choice A remarkable and uniquely American story . . . The research is exhaustive, and this by itself makes the book an invaluable resource for anyone interested in learning about the day-to-day workings of Synanon. -Jessica Warner, Addiction Rod Janzen has pieced together the first retrospective narrative history of the group, tracing both the trajectory of the organization and the contradictory life of Chuck Dederich, its founding guru . . . Janzen is a sympathetic observer who faithfully chronicles Dederich's decline into clinically defined bipolar illness and egomania. -Robert S. Fogarty, Journal of American History Why should we read Janzen's book instead [of other accounts of Synanon]? Because Janzen clearly shows us the mundane ordinariness of Synanon, a utopia without utopian theory or religious or political basis. -Michael Orth, Utopian Studies
