Land Without Evil: Utopian Journeys Across the South American Watershed Book

While my stepbrother attended Shimer College I visited on several occasions, both socially and as a candidate for a teaching position there. Shimer, a small great books school, was at that time an extraordinary institution. All teachers administered. All administrators taught. Everyone made the same salary. A general assembly of all staff, trustees, students and interested alumni served as the ultimate authority--though alumni lacked the vote. All students took the same curriculum in the same order so that books were purchased by the bag, not individually, and every student of a given class was familiar with the same books. Consequently, Shimer had a tight, generally idealistic community united both intellectually and in terms of polity. Visits, owing to the quality of conversations there, were a delight.

Of all my brother's closest friends, I became closest to one John McGough, close enough that he would come down to Chicago on weekends to stay at my place without the mediation of my brother. He was exceptionally companionable. Both of us would study together in local cafes all day, then go out drinking after a sparse, jerry-rigged meal--or, for a treat, we'd pack some hard-boiled eggs and bread, then go for a walk that would last for hours.

After graduating, John moved down to the city, obtaining an apartment with two other Shimerians. He lived here for a few years before going on to graduate study at Duquesne. When he was packing up to go, seeing my interest in the attractive book jacket to Land Without Evil, he gave me the book. It was big and he had to travel light. I read it in his honor only learning much later that he'd never gotten around to it.