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Founded by San Francisco newspapermen around the turn of the century. what distinguishes this club from others just as prestigious, though, is the Grove, the summer encampment held every July on 3000 isolated acres of redwood forest north of the Bay Area for which the great and powerful from around the world interrupt their affairs, if only for a weekend. 'John van der Zee, from Healdsburg California, posed as a waiter at the Bohemian Grove in the summer of 1972, the Club's 100th year, and wrote the 1974 book The Greatest Men's Party on Earth. Subtitled "Inside the Bohemian Grove," It combines his first hand observations of camp life with extensive historical research and information gathered from interviews of club members to present an overview of the club and its encampment. Chapters include a discussion of the founding of the club by newsmen and artistic types and the subsequent evolution of the group to a more socially and politically prominent organization financed by those of greater wealth, with visual and performing artists and musicians accepted as associate members. Van der Zee writes about Herbert Hoover's role as an honored participant in the annual encampments and describes and interprets a lakeside talk, a variety show with famous performers, and the Grove's annual play that is staged with considerable effort and expense at a large outdoor theater within the Grove. Chapter nine, titled "The Bomb" recounts networking activities by Ernest Lawrence at the Grove that resulted in financial support for his nuclear physics research, and it tells of a secret meeting at the Grove during the second world war where scientists made key decisions about how to develop the atomic bomb. The Grove's summer camps are still much as van der Zee describes, although there are now some African-American members, and, as a result of court decisions, there are now female workers. Informative book! '
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- PublisherHarcourt Brace Jovanovich
- Publication date1974
- ISBN 10 0151369054
- ISBN 13 9780151369058
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages182
- Rating
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The Greatest Men's Party on Earth: Inside the Bohemian Grove
Published by
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
(1974)
ISBN 10: 0151369054
ISBN 13: 9780151369058
Used
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. Dust Jacket Condition: Acceptable. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich [Published Date: 1974]. NOTE: Hardcover, 182 pp. Second printing. Acceptable in acceptable dust jacket. Black cloth covered boards have a 1/4" dent and some nicking to the cloth in the middle of the fore-edge of the front cover. Light overall scuffing and fading to edges of covers as well. Binding tight. Light spotting to top edge of text block. Pages lightly aged but otherwise unmarked with occasional light spotting. Dust jacket has a 1.5" circular chip along the fold of the front jacket flap and several other chips and tears and creasing to edges. Light to moderate overall scuffing, aging and soiling to jacket as well. NOT price clipped Now in an archival-quality (removable) Brodart Cover. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. Overall a good reading copy [from front jacket flap] The Bohemian Grove is a closely guarded redwood preserve a hundred miles or so north of San Francisco. There the Bohemian Club - one of the supremely exclusive men's clubs in the nation - holds an annual encampment that may be, because of its scale and the participants, the most remarkable tribal ritual ever celebrated by the human male. Herbert Hoover, a dedicated Bohemian but hardly (one imagines) a man much given to hyperbole, called it the greatest men's party on earth. What happens when throngs of the most powerful Americans - leaders in industry, finance, politics, and the professions - gather each July beneath the towering trees and luxuriously rough it for a frenetic fortnight? John van der Zee penetrated the sacred precincts in the guise of a waiter. From his personal observations, from conversations with members willing to talk, and from his delvings into the curious history of the club (it was founded, with the utmost informality, by a bunch of carefree newspapermen), he has made a highly entertaining book. Much of what he reveals is funny; some of it almost passes belief; none of it is exactly sinister. But the book's total effect - as we contemplate the superlatively successful American male chauvinist at play - is by implication at least a little disturbing. Seller Inventory # 20210312011
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The Greatest Men's Part on Earth: Inside the Bohemian Grove
Published by
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York
(1974)
ISBN 10: 0151369054
ISBN 13: 9780151369058
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description First edition and first printing. Hardcover. Van Der Zee finagled his way in as a waiter and was able to get an interesting insight into this deeply private all men's club. A tight near fine copy in cloth boards and in a near fine dust jacket with some small creases to the flaps. A very nice copy. Seller Inventory # 196330
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US$ 175.00
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