America 2034: Utopia Rising is a well written novel seamlessly weaving together different levels of reality while stimulating the reader to question whether American Democracy can survive Donald Trump.
The new novel by author Jonathan Greenberg is available in print form here and via Kindle here, and audiobook.
On the most obvious level, the book is a cautionary Americanized follow up to Orwell’s classic 1984 and complements the uniquely American 1975 utopian classic Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. America 2034 projects into a shocking nightmarish future the concerns that many have about the consequences of President Trump’s narcissism and corruption.
And, we ponder “Is the future now?”
Of at least equal importance is that this book has all the elements of a well-crafted contemporary vision for a harmonious future, and as such is a valuable contribution to the field of utopia literature. America 2034: Utopia Rising story touches the places we all want to believe are already in each of us. It is an excellent tale of how spiritual insight and spiritual communication abilities can awaken Human Divineness to vanquish Human Evil.
Nonviolence, even amidst hell-on-earth scenes that the book envisions, is demonstrated as the primary theory of achieving and using the power of the “Activated” spiritual Oneness innate in all people. Mr. Greenberg (who is editor of the Sonoma Independent) skillfully passes on Jesus’ message of activism, courage, compassion, and nonviolence with one another, as well as with the Earth herself and all its creatures.
As a result,
I expect America 2034: Utopia Rising to become an underground classic of utopian literature.
This timely book contains a meaningful message about learning how to understand the human phenomena of experiencing “Oneness” with all Life (humans, animals , plants, earth, and the cosmos). It does so through an epigenetic switching on, or “Activation,” of the Oneness gene that “lies dormant” in all human beings. Mr. Greenberg’s common-sense descriptions of the experience of the “egoless interconnectedness” is presented throughout his story as it is experienced in the lives of the protagonist Winston Smith and others.
As a lifelong Californian, I found it fascinating that part of the book takes place in Sonoma County where the young women who are the spiritual leaders of the United Peoples of America, the new utopian nation, live in an organic farming community. To note, some of the earliest and most important Utopian communities in the United States were similarly agrarian in nature, and originated in Sonoma County starting in the late 19th century.
Greenberg’s work will be of interest to anyone interested in this field of imagining. The author clearly understands what he is talking about when he writes about the mind-body experience activated by psycho-active plants like ayahuasca and psilocybin. In this regard America 2034: Utopia Rising explores alternative realms of consciousness, continuing in the brave tradition of Carlos Castaneda, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary and, most recently, Michael Pollan.
On the level of entertainment, America 2034: Utopia Rising also works, because it is also one hell of story, a suspenseful, urgently needed novel for the political times of 2018-2020. Each chapter left me hungry to read the next chapter, even when I did not have enough time—just a peek! Will the story’s expertly-crafted, intensely diabolical villains be vanquished? Of course they will. But the “way” they are vanquished is in itself sufficient reason to read America 2034: Utopia Rising.
The future is now in America 2034: I was tempted to check the news to make sure that the dystopian future for Trump’s renamed United Enterprises of America was not already happening, such as Trump’s desire, implied right after his visit to China, to become “President for Life.”
It takes a lot of courage in this age of intimidation of the media by right wing ideologues and the White House to name names in a satire about our future. Mr. Greenberg pulls no punches in his cautionary tale.
This book should be required reading for young voters and apolitical folk of all ages who somehow still believe that Trump’s lunacy will not affect them or our world.
(Editor’s Note: Jonathan Greenberg, the author of America 2034: Utopia Rising, is the founder and editor of the Sonoma Independent).
