Kirkus Reviews
Kennard, an environmental activist and one of the founders of Earth Day, offers a set of essays on a variety of topics that have defined his life.
The pieces in this collection are short—most are only a few pages long—and they cover a range of issues that have personal importance to the author, giving the book as a whole a memoiristic feel.
The subjects include environmentalism, and what successful activism in that area involves—he was one of the co-creators of Earth Day, with Mike McCabe, in 1970, which mobilized millions, and he’s lobbied for important pro-environment legislation, among other achievements. He also talks about small businesses and their potential for innovation, political theory, and LGBTQ+ rights.
Some essays are more autobiographical than others (as in one in which he notes that “the realization I was queer was a hellish experience, which I was forced to endure as a child”), but all spotlight Kennard’s distinctive voice and explain how he’s put his beliefs and values to use.
The tone is satirical but not caustic (“How come Bonaparte gets 300,000 books written about him and I get none? Not even one!), and it’s clear that Kennard doesn’t actually want to be blindly praised.
However, he does discuss his considerable activism work, which may win over more readers to his ideas. It’s certainly fair for an accomplished fighter for justice, at the end of his career, to take the opportunity to show off a little bit, and Kennard proves to be a funny, generous writer.
It’s a lot of fun to watch essays’ concepts overlap and influence one another, as when he notes the influence of economist E.F. Schumacher’s dictum that “Small systems are likely to be more manageable, responsive, efficient, accountable, and resilient than big systems.”
His own expertise will almost certainly teach aspiring activists something new. Some may wish that some ideas were explained more thoroughly, but his essays are convincing and enjoyable throughout. He’s an engaging writer and teacher, and it’s easy to see how his work brought so many people into the fight to save the planet.
A lovely celebration of a long and fascinating career.
Review by Peter H. Schuck, Professor Emeritus, Yale University Law School
“Byron Kennard’s new book, like his life, is a tour de force.”
Review by Peter Harnik, author, Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities
Byron Kennard’s fifth book, his most personal, revealing and plaintive, is a largely rollicking escapade through a lifetime of ups and downs, but its title is a misnomer. Rather than the somewhat off-putting How I Got to Be a Great Man, it might more properly be called How I Got to Write a Great Book.
Kennard’s greatness, in this book as well as in his earlier ones, is his ability to pull lessons out of life’s hard knocks and to maintain an everlastingly upbeat and positive attitude toward humanity’s prospects. Despite everything that is wrong in the world today – and the book has more than its share of lamentations against the evils of Donald Trump and his ilk – Kennard believes that a nature-based goodness will always triumph over the sins and failings of greedy, power-hungry, mercantile men and women.
Or perhaps the book should have been called How I Got to be a Small Man, since smallness is the heart and soul of Kennard’s analysis. From his influence by the seminal book Small is Beautiful, to his groundbreaking creation of the Center for Small Business and the Environment, to community efforts that he lauds as “small, local and voluntary,” he says, “That is how the world is changed for the better.”
As he always has done in his writings, Kennard relies upon great persons of the past to elucidate his philosophy, “great” ranging from villains like Napoleon Bonaparte to the author’s sublime hero, Edmund Burke. Burke, says Kennard, combines “the primacy of prudence” with the “desirability of organic change,” a middle-of-the-road approach that is the only way to save the planet. Burke’s most penetrating insight, Kennard says, was, “Society is indeed a contract…a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
In the book’s most affecting section, Kennard first describes his psychological mistreatment by his mother and then reveals the pivotal moment in his young life when he clearly heard a voice telling him, “You are going to be a great man.” The power of this vision has carried and uplifted him for his entire life, even as he has undertaken almost impossible challenges and suffered the slings and arrows of numerous rejections.
Personally, I have a glimpse of Kennard’s inner power. When I was five, I took a test to get into a competitive elementary school connected with a college in New York City. (There were video cameras in the classrooms so that education majors could watch the small children.) When I passed the test, my parents proudly praised me, as did the parents of all my student friends. This praise has served as a life-long magic protective shield, even as I’ve been turned down for jobs, lost battles, had hopes dashed, run out of money, come up short, and otherwise suffered the batterings of reality. I can’t remember if my mom said I was going to be “great,” but that instance taught me the immense power of imagination and expectation.
Kennard, of course, has taken on much more in his long life than I have—battling for the rights of homosexuals, getting involved with the environmental movement much earlier than almost anyone else, proclaiming the unlikely importance of small businesspeople as bulwarks of ecology—and there are also places in this normally upbeat and enthusiastic book where he cries out against the unfairness of his mistreatment and unrecognition over the years. He reflects glumly on the second half of his long-ago mystical revelation—that “You won’t be recognized or accepted as such [i.e., great] until you are old”—and ponders when that moment will come.
Fortunately, after reading his new book, I know the moment has arrived. In Kennard’s wonderful graphics, he portrays himself with a golden crown on his head (or is it a halo?) on the cover, and with cute little red devil horns on the back cover. Between those two clashing metaphors is a text that sums up all the paradoxes of his greatness, the wisdom he imparts, and the wonderful complexity that makes up the philosophy he articulated way back in his first book, “Nothing can be done, everything is possible.”
Review by Rich Tafel, Pastor, Church of the Holy City, Washington, DC
“What makes a great leader? Byron Kennard has a compelling answer: it’s someone who renounces personal ambition to serve the greater good. With characteristic wit, Byron shares his own story of working to become a great man. His strategy will surprise you.
In You Can’t Fool Mother Nature (Amazon, 2022), Byron reflects on his pivotal role in the birth of the modern environmental movement, including his work as a principal organizer of Earth Day in 1970—a watershed moment that helped awaken a generation to the urgent need for stewardship of our planet. But the real story isn’t about one man’s success. It’s about a movement built on collaboration.
What makes Byron’s leadership so powerful is his humility. In the book, he names 120 individuals who shaped the environmental cause alongside him and describes what each one contributed. That’s not just generosity; it’s how change happens. Real community organizers, like Byron, build coalitions, share credit, and focus on what unites us rather than divides us.
At a time when contempt paralyzes our nation and role models are hard to find, Byron reminds readers that change happens. This book isn’t just a history of environmentalism — it’s a manual for leadership in divided times. Byron reminds us that we change history not by elevating ourselves, but by lifting up others.”
Review by Cameron Chisholm, President and founder, International Peace & Security Institute
“Kennard, a disciple of Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, is the originator of Burkean environmentalism — the idea that the best way to achieve ecological sustainability is through conservative methods. Though “conservative” in approach, his insights offer timeless wisdom that will resonate with readers across the political spectrum.”