Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174422 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
"A Good Life" is a celebration of John Seymour: self-sufficiency guru, political activist, environmental campaigner and author of "The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency", a book together with the man, that became in the inspiration for a whole generation. Through interviews with family and friends and archival research including hitherto unpublished material this important book details the larger than life character of John Seymour and describes his passions and philosophies that helped inspire, amongst others, the writers of the popular 1970s BBC Television situation comedy, "The Good Life", starring Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers. Paul Peacock charts John Seymour's early childhood years dreaming of being a cowboy, his life in Africa, his early farming experiences and the gradual formulation of his philosophy. He discusses at length the all-important later years with the move to Ireland and his part in the infamous Arthurstown Monsanto Trials in the 1990s when, in his eighties, he argued passionately and eloquently against the rise of Genetically Modified crops."A Good Life" analyses the extent of John Seymour's influence.

How his farm became a beacon to many who had read his book and how they travelled from all over the world to work with him. These included such visionary thinkers as Leopold Kohr and E F Schumacher. It takes an objective look at many of his thoughts on the future of the developed world, his fears about the rising dominance of supermarkets and their ultimate stranglehold on agriculture and the land, his major concerns about genetically modified crops and intensive farming and his impassioned and reasoned stance on animal welfare issues.

Customer Reviews

A Country Life- November Book Review
This book was brilliant!

It gave an honest and fascinating account of who the real John Seymour was and I now find that I like the man even more...

It was good to see how he became the person he was and how his childhood had much to do with it- it was incredible really that in some ways he knew that he was different at such a young age but it just took a little while to find the 'Real John Seymour'....

I wasn't surprised to find out that he really was a 'people person'....I had guessed this from the books he wrote. What I hadn't realised was that he had come from really quite a wealthy and socialite family....something which he found he had nothing in common with rather spending his time with the 'real people' in the kitchens..

A fascinating man with a true personal philosophy- I want to hear more please!!!

Now I have devoured it I will savour it again slowly.....

Live your own life
Just goes to show that heroes have feet of clay. It's best to just take what you can from his self sufficiency books, which did have a heavy input from his wives and co-workers. It's no good thinking "Wow, what a nice guy, he knows so much about self-sufficiency, I'd really like to be like him" because it's fairly clear that John Seymour stumbled into self-sufficiency because he couldn't stick at anything else and make it pay.