The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon

A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

By: Bill McKibben

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed

"Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben's lifetime."-AudioFile on The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon

Bill McKibben—award-winning author, activist, educator—is fiercely curious.

“I’m curious about what went so suddenly sour with American patriotism, American faith, and American prosperity.”

Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing—knowing—that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth.

But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril.

And he is curious: What the hell happened?

In this revelatory cri de coeur, McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth—The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon—could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Co.

©2022 Bill McKibben (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison. This sparkling little diamond of a book illuminates the all-American boyhood and education of a radical Christian environmentalist in love with a broken world that, frankly speaking, may or may not exist at all a century from now. May McKibben's golden pen continue to flow swiftly and conquer—with both love and reason—the dangerous enemies of human civilization.“
—Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD-8)

“Plainspoken, direct, conversational, and inspiring, Bill McKibben offers us generous insight into who he is and how he has been shaped by his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs. We see through inner and outer choices, struggles, and influences, why one of the world's most effective and humble leaders in the climate justice movement committed himself to an activist's life on behalf of a warming planet. The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon is more than a memoir, it is a bow to the power of social justice movements and a smart and savvy historical reflection on what has brought us to this crucible moment of climate collapse. Bill McKibben is an every-day hero who continues to show us not only what is possible, but necessary to our survival, the survival of our democracy, and all life in the places we call home.“ —Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing

“What went wrong with America in the 1970s? In this searching book, Bill McKibben wrestles with a generation that lost its way, and why, and how to find the way back.”
—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

A constructive and educational look back on the reader’s life

And engagingly critical look at my times and what I might do about them in the ten or more years I hope to be given the grace to live.

A plea for community in an age of idealism.

As I prepared to retire after many decades of teaching, I remembered the many students that had shared the classroom with me and how almost all of them still believed in the “better angels of our nature” despite the rhetoric of hate and division that too many adults saw as good politics, I couldn’t help but feel that my generation had failed these young adults in some fundamental way,. However, while I recognized those failures, until I read this book, I didn’t realize that we had the opportunity to both help rekindle that idealism that once inspired us. Doing so would help pay our debt to future generations and reawaken the aspirations of our youth who chose to “dream of things that never were, and say why not.”

Last chance for Baby Boomers!

McKibben has analyzed very ably, all the various strands running through recent US culture, strands, which have culminated in this moment of time, a time of crisis. He shows that many young people can no longer look optimistically into the future, as they are facing the disturbing reality of climate disaster, as well as racial and economic injustice around them. The author concludes that the generation which bears major responsibility for what has been happening politically up to this point, must now come to the rescue of the young, in order to effect last-minute, radical changes to save the future for their grandchildren: Baby Boomers, redeem yourselves, before it is too late!

A story for all to hear

This book was so well researched and well read. I enjoyed this book so much.Thank you Bill

Hard to take - but many should read

I struggled through this book as the author recounts personal life experiences and relates them to historical events and episodes that have brought us to our present state of stark divisions, and dysfunction. It’s a recount of the processes we go through, and I’m reminded how humanity has evolved very little socially since Ancient Greece. The actor reading the audio version I listened to had a “Rod Serling” tone of eminent doom- which I didn’t like.
But still, I recommend reading this book. Unfortunately, those who might benefit most from the enlightenment it offers likely won’t read it.

Elders Take Notice

An inspiring and valuable resource that all elders should read ASAP. Full of relatable personal stories that baby boomers can learn from. A wake up call for a generation that must act for the future.

The Flag, The Cross, and The Station Wagon

Excellent analysis of the major political themes in America over the author’s and my lifetime. Helpful and hopeful.

Thank you, Bill.

An Unreconstructed Liberal looks back

McKibben does a fine job of weaving together three of the major trends that led to American Society and perhaps Western Culture to edge of the cliff where it resides today.

In this sensitive memoir he mourns the passing of the Small Town Values that he grew up with in Lexington, Massachusetts. But it is not the mawkish account you might expect from a Right Wing Politician inventing a clarion call to “Bring back the Good Old Days”, Rather it asks important questions about how we got here to a place whose citizens worship Ignorance of the dangers of Climate Change, “Progress”, Growth at all costs, Malls, MegaChurches, and McMansions.

He points to Right-Turns the country took away from the Carter Seventies to the Reagan Eighties and some of the seminal speeches and political stances, particularly a SCOTUS Decision by Justice Lewis Powell that revolutionized changes in Big Business, Religion, and Politics motivations in a dangerous direction.

This last made a powerful impact on me. Every Baby Boomer should read this book.
Four Stars ****

Mind blowing

Do yourself a favor and open your mind up to rethinking the housing and climate issues by reading/listening to this book.

Heartbreakng

--------and FRUSTRATING. People are just ignoring this. Never mind grandchldren; our adult children will be horribly affected by this. I am old and have been working on this since the 70's. In the future, when our descendants read about our past two generations, when we KNEW what was coming, what will they feel? More importantly, how will they survive? i