Berry's assessment of modern agriculture and its relationship to American culture--our health, economy, personal relationships, morals, and spiritual values--is more timely than ever. This new edition of Berry's work presents a a classic testament to the value of the American family farm.
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Berry's assessment of modern agriculture and its relationship to American culture--our health, economy, personal relationships, morals, and spiritual values--is more timely than ever. This new edition of Berry's work presents a a classic testament to the value of the American family farm.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture to cart. $17.99, fair condition, Sold by CRS Trading rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Spring Valley, NY, UNITED STATES, published 1977 by Sierra Club Books.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. Cover & edges may have light shelf wear. Pages are clean. There is a signature or handwriting on the inside front cover. The dust jacket is missing. Fast Shipping. Excellent & friendly Customer Service. Your satisfaction is our top priority! guaranteed! Buy with confidnece.
Add this copy of The Unsettling of America Culture & Agriculture to cart. $57.00, very good condition, Sold by DPBooks rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bettendorf, IA, UNITED STATES, published 1977 by Sierra Club Books.
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Very Good with no dust jacket; Ex-Library from a Carmelite Monastery. Library pocket on the front paste down and a 5 line gift inscription dated 1977. There is also stamping on the title page and the page edges. The DJ's front flap was cut off and put... 0871561948. Blue covered boards with white writing on the spine.; Large 8vo 9"-10" tall; 228 p.
Add this copy of The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture to cart. $64.64, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Random House, Inc.
Add this copy of The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture to cart. $176.92, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1982 by Random House, Inc.
Add this copy of The Unsettling of America to cart. $600.00, good condition, Sold by Arches Bookhouse rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Portland, OR, UNITED STATES, published 1977 by Sierra Club Books.
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GOOD in Very Good jacket. SIGNED and inscribed by the author on the title page: 'Signed for Nancy and Charles, who I think are very well settled. // [Signed] Wendell Berry // 12/8/85. ' Annotated copy with thoughtful pencil marginalia throughout, ranging from enthusiastic agreement to critical questioning. 228pp. Large 8vo, Navy cloth, gilt stamped spine lettering, blind stamped front cover. Very clean and sharp apart from the penciling; DJ with miniscule chips to head and tail of spine. Arguably the most important book from the man Edward Abbey calls 'America's Isaiah' on the rear cover. 'Good farming, Berry argues, is, a cultural development and a spiritual discipline. But in taking farming out of its cultural con-text, and turning over to the 'agricultural specialists' the time-hallowed act of food production, we have become estranged from the land--from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Berry sees this as of a piece with the estrangement of generations, of the sexes, of urban and rural society, of neighbors.'.
About 50 percent of the time I found myself agreeing with Wendell Berry. The other 50 percent I was convinced this man was completely off his rocker. Berry takes into consideration various sources of information to make his point that farms, that is farms that don't use modern technology in terms of machinery, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. are good.
Berry's got a hard-on for farming. Any other way of life is somehow pitiful in his estimation. It's a romantic idea, but it's not realistic. Old fashioned farming is nice, but it's not the end all be all. It's not the pinnacle of human existence. I get the feeling that Berry has a nostalgic love for farming based on boyhood memories and wants that old farming way of life to continue. He wants us to go back to the way things used to be. The problem with this line of thinking is where does one stop in this trip back through time. Farming after all is not natural. Human beings started out as hunter gatherers and farming itself, no matter how practical we may see it, does go against nature.
Berry weighs in on anything and everything from birth control to suicide and seems to genuinely believe that all of it would be unnecessary if people just stopped using those dang tractors. Some of the examples that he calls upon are bizarre. Shakespeare's King Lear is used to promote a simple agrarian lifestyle. Thomas Jefferson is held up as an example of a man who did not use machines on his farm, conveniently left out is the fact that the man did use people (the slaves he owned) as machines on it. When writing in favor of the use of draft horses on the modern farm, Berry quotes extensively from a publication called the Draft Horse Quarterly, who judging by the title of their publication might have a vested interest in the whole draft horse as farm workers thing. I would have appreciated a quote or two from a less partial source.
Berry holds up the Amish as a human ideal, but it's hard to see people who are opposed to anything beyond an eighth grade education as ideal. In one section Berry comes up with a list of 8 falsehoods promoted by love songs which he feels lead people unwittingly into marriage. I have a hard time conceiving of anyone who takes a love song as proved fact. Perhaps his undereducated friends in the Amish community, although from what I understand they do not listen to this sort of music.
Despite all my complaining, I do agree with a lot of the things Berry says. Organic farming is very important. Factory farming is a nightmare that could lead to huge problems down the road. Still, I don't know that one has to shun all technology to have a sustainable organic farm. Then again, I don't really have any romantic notions about farms. If it worked out to be healthier for us to grow all our food in greenhouses that were staffed by a bunch of robots, well then I would have no problem accepting that.
Berry, on the other hand, is writing about a bygone way of life that he longs to bring back, and he tries to use everything from suicide rates to the environment to make it clear why we should do so.
