the first time in twenty years. At the time, many de-
clared that his insistence on investing in firmly estab-
lished, proven businesses was out of date in the new
Internet economy.
However, in 2000 Buffett appeared to have the last
laugh, as the high-technology stock bubble burst.
Berkshire Hathaway, meanwhile, bounced back as in-
vestors ran back to established companies, and once
again the financial community was praising his far-
sighted wisdom. Buffett’s contribution to the 1990’s
spread much broader than his impact on the many
high-profile companies in which he invested. He
also became one of the earliest and strongest advo-
cates of improved corporate governance, making
public his stances on issues such as executive com-
pensation.
Impact Buffett has influenced the entire invest-
ment universe, from the chairman of the Federal Re-
serve to individual investors across North America.
No other individual investor in living memory has
been so closely followed.
Further Reading
Buffett, Mary, and David Clarke.The New Buffettology.
New York: Rawson Associates, 2002.
Lowe, Janet.Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom
from the World’s Greatest Investor. Rev. ed. Hoboken,
N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
Lowenstein, Roger.Buffett: The Making of an American
Capitalist. New York: Random House, 1995.
Rikard Bandebo
See also Business and the economy in Canada;
Business and the economy in the United States; Dot-
coms; Gates, Bill; Greenspan, Alan; Trump, Donald.
Burning Man festivals
The Event Annual temporary art community
Place Black Rock Desert, Nevada
In 1986, a small, spirited, and artful party began the act of
burning an effigy of “the Man.” This singular, semiprivate
event evolved into an annual artistic tradition, a prolific,
communal, anticommercial movement.
The character of Burning Man festivals is unique to
the entire world: On the Monday of the week prior
to Labor Day weekend, thousands of radically self-
expressive and self-reliant individuals arrive at Black
Rock Desert, Nevada, to endure eight days of triple-
digit heat to create, commune, and share in the ex-
perience of the Saturday night burning of “the
Man,” a massive wooden effigy. Because Burning
Man festivals are commerce-free, participants bring
their own supplies, tools, and survival gear, as well as
art materials and equipment. A predetermined
theme inspires the attendees to contribute artisti-
cally through theme camps (which began in 1993,
when Peter Doty walked the playa, the ancient
lakebed where the event takes place, dressed as
Santa Claus), interactive endeavors, temporary liv-
ing structures, moving art pieces, or art installations.
Themes included Fertility (1997), the Nebulous En-
tity (1998), and the Wheel of Time (1999). At the
end of the festival, all participants break down their
constructions and clean up to meet the only man-
date of the week: Leave no trace. The only residual is
the “afterburn,” the indelible memory of the collec-
tive, spiritual experience.Core Values When the first Burning Man festival
took place in 1986, it was merely an intimate get-
together, a ceremony in honor of the summer sol-
stice. At Baker Beach in San Francisco, California,
Renaissance man Larry Harvey conceived of the
idea to burn “the Man.” Harvey and Jerry James
built the eight-foot-tall construct, and the party of
friends as well as a few beach bystanders watched as it
was torched. An individual spectator held the
wooden figure’s hand as it burned, making for the
first impromptu performance art, while the event it-
self made for an annual ritual of expression, inspira-
tion, and nonmaterial communing that has perpetu-
ated and increased in popularity as exponentially as
the construct of the Man has grown.
That first year, the effigy was a basic wooden struc-
ture. The number of persons attending the event
was twenty. In 2006, nearly forty thousand attendees
gathered to witness the burning of a forty-foot rising
and falling Man built atop a thirty-two-foot-high in-
teractive maze in the Art Deco Pavilion. The impro-
vised event had given rise to a planned annual social
experience wherein participants involve themselves
in the community, immerse themselves in interac-
tive art, and carry the event’s apolitical and anti-
commercial tenets to the greater community of hu-
mankind throughout the rest of the year.
The Burning Man participants of the 1990’s es-
tablished and perpetuated the core values of a sus-The Nineties in America Burning Man festivals 127