The politics of omnipotence flourished in most of the democratic West during their decades of affluence after recovery from World War Two. Without really intending to, even the United States became a welfare state. Strong central governments had put the Great Depression years behind, and nothing seem to prevent a robust nation-state from spending it way to Utopia. George Park spend three years during those decades observing events in Helgeland, a marginal fjord region in North Norway, which the postwar Labour government had determined to modernize. What he found was not Utopia but something better: proof that a radically democratic system of politics at the grass roots can balance off the notorious dangers of the strongest central government.
George Park, social anthropologist,is the author of numerous books, articles, and papers. He has taught at universities in both Canada and the United States but now works as a freelance writer and editor based in Prince Edward Island, where he is completing studies based on research in East Africa.
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