Record Display for the EPA National Library Catalog
RECORD NUMBER: 1 OF 2Main Title | The unsettling of America : culture & agriculture / | |||||||||||
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Author | Berry, Wendell, | |||||||||||
Publisher | Sierra Club Books, | |||||||||||
Year Published | 1977 | |||||||||||
OCLC Number | 02836944 | |||||||||||
ISBN | 0871561948; 9780871561947 | |||||||||||
Subjects | Agriculture--Economic aspects--United States ; Agriculture--Social aspects--United States ; United States--Rural conditions ; Ecology--United States ; Agriculture--United States ; Agribusiness--United States ; Energy in agriculture--United States ; Rural conditions--United States | |||||||||||
Additional Subjects | Agriculture--Economic aspects--United States ; Agriculture--Social aspects--United States | |||||||||||
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Collation | ix, 228 pages ; 26 cm | |||||||||||
Notes | Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-228). |
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Contents Notes | The unsettling of America -- The ecological crisis as a crisis of character -- The ecological crisis as a crisis of agriculture -- The ecological crisis as a crisis of culture -- Living in the future : the "modern" agricultural ideal -- The use of energy -- The body and the Earth -- Jefferson, Morrill, and the upper crust -- Margins. "The Unsettling of America" is Wendell Berry's personal, dramatic inquiry into the way in which we use the land that sustains us. For the roots of our attitudes toward farming, Berry goes back to the industrial revolution, which promised freedom from physical toil, and to the "conquistador" mentality that ruled the settlement of North America, treating land, resources, and ultimately people as infinitely expendable. Out of this history comes a disturbing, and officially sanctioned, vision of the farm of the future -- where the supreme value is maximum production, where the environment is to be controlled by technology, and where a man has no place. Berry challenges these and other orthodox values and assumptions: techniques of cultivation that damage the soil and sacrifice quality to mere abundance; the reliance on huge inputs of energy to fuel machines and manufacture chemicals; the "get big or get out" philosophy that has driven millions of farmers from the land and "unsettled" whole communities. This is above all a book that will change minds, a work of passion, eloquence, and conviction. -- From publisher's description. |