Edward Hasbrouck

Wellesley High School Author: Edward Hasbrouck (1977)

         Edward Hasbrouck is the author of The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World, now in its 5th edition. He writes on his website “I write and speak about travel as an aspect of life: something we do, not something we buy. We may pay for transportation and for places to sleep, just as we may pay for schooling, but we can’t buy experience any more than we can buy enlightenment. I abhor the commodification of travel, and I write and speak about how my readers and listeners can avoid it.”

His deep, varied, and intriguing reflections on travel, politics, and peace activism can be found on his website:  hasbrouck.org/bio/whoami.html.  One entry discusses his relationship to Wellesley, WHS and the library, which he also discussed in a talk at the WFL:  hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001652.html.  Of his years at WHS (where he was named “Class Intellect and Enigma,”) he writes:  “I continued my resistance to the violence of illegitimate authority as an elected but nonvoting student representative to the local school board and as an activist for peace, disarmament, and students’ rights. My first book was a handbook for high school students on their legal rights which I co-authored in the summer of 1977, between high school and college, as an intern for the student service bureau of the Massachusetts Department of Education. (The last time I checked, an updated edition was still in print.)”