Product Description

21 essays offering an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture. Through staunch support of local economies and farming communities, Berry offers a clear vision to those dissatisfied with the destructiveness of American culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #313760 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

A superb collection of essays
This is the first book I have read by Wendell Berry so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I was surprised to find it one of the best and most thought provoking books I have read.

It challenges most of the modern way of life, industrialism, quite convincingly and compellingly. The vision Berry paints as antidote is one of place, the connectedness and mysteriousness of life, all of which are rooted in soil, work and history.

A small area which I found to be edifying was his defence of the manuscript. This, perhaps, shows more than many 'greater' points what we have lost through technology.

Equally helpful is his understanding of work which is more or less pervasive throughout the essays. The criticism of men disconnected from home and ensconced in office blocks, doing questionable work, is stinging. There are many criticisms too close to home for comfort.

One area which I found disagreeable was his essay on Christianity towards the end of the book. Certain points made in this essay are to be found in several of the others but this one essay brings much of them together. His view is essentially that dualism is an aberration. Modern Christianity with it's emphasis on the ethereal and incorporeal is a corruption of the Bible. This emphasis has led 'organised Christianity' to be complicit in the 'murder of creation'. There is some truth in this criticism but I think he overplays it. I have two criticisms. In an effort to establish the importance of creation he collapses the 'spiritual' into the corporeal, thus committing an equal, if not greater, error. I would also suggest he misunderstands, or at least underestimates, the doctrine of sin. Although his overall position probably requires this understanding of sin. These criticisms I could be persuaded to apply to several more of his ideas.