The Unsettling of America : Culture & Agriculture

Overview: Since its publication by Sierra Club Books in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural development and spiritual discipline. Today's agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land-from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. We continue to suffer loss of community, the devaluation of human work, and the destruction of nature under an economic system dedicated to the mechanistic pursuit of products and profits. Although "this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong," Berry writes, there are good people working "to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth." Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction In The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural development and spiritual discipline. Today's agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families, and as a nation we are thus more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, as Berry notes in the afterword to this new edition, his arguments and observations are still relevant today. We continue to suffer loss of community, the devaluation of human work, and the destruction of nature under an economics dedicated to the mechanistic pursuit of products and profits Contents 8 Preface 10 Preface to the Second Edition 12 Acknowledgments 14 CHAPTER ONE: The Unsettling of America 20 CHAPTER TWO: The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Character 34 CHAPTER THREE: The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Agriculture 46 CHAPTER FOUR: The Agricultural Crisisas a Crisis of Culture 58 CHAPTER FIVE: Living in the Future:The “Modern”Agricultural Ideal 70 CHAPTER SIX: The Use of Energy 100 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Body and the Earth 116 CHAPTER EIGHT: Jefferson, Morrill, and the Upper Crust 162 CHAPTER NINE: Margins 190 Afterword to the Third Edition 244 Notes 250