Our only world : ten essays

Our only world Ten essays

Wendell Berry, 1934-

Book - 2015

"In this new collection of [ten] essays, Berry confronts head-on the necessity of clear thinking and direct action. Never one to ignore the present challenge, he understands that only clearly stated questions support the understanding their answers require. For more than fifty years we've had no better spokesman and no more eloquent advocate for the planet, for our families, and for the future of our children and ourselves"--

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Subjects
Political culture.
Environmentalism.
World politics > 21st century.
United States > Social conditions.
Published
Berkeley : Counterpoint [2015]
©2015
Language
English
Main Author
Wendell Berry, 1934- (author)
Item Description
Subtitle in pre-publication: Eleven essays.
Physical Description
178 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781619024885
  • 1. Paragraphs from a Notebook
  • 2. The Commerce of Violence
  • 3. A Forest Conversation
  • 4. Local Economies to Save the Land and the People
  • 5. Less Energy, More Life
  • 6. Caught in the Middle
  • 7. On Receiving One of the Dayton Literary Peace Prizes
  • 8. Our Deserted Country
  • 9. For the 50-Year Farm Bill
  • 10. On Being Asked for "A Narrative for the Future"
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

"Valid criticism," poet, conservationist, and national treasure Berry (The Unsettling of America) declares in his latest collection's opening essay, "attempts a just description of our condition." The book goes on to vivisect, with uncommon lucidity and common sense, the accruing damages of the "industrial economy and its so-called free market," as well as our "commerce of violence" that profits from the "destruction of land and people" as shown in the essay "Our Deserted Country," about the wastelands created by industrial agriculture. Berry's crusade is not for conservation but repair, and in another selection, "Local Economies," he offers a "reasonable permanence of dwelling place and vocation" as one remedy. Adhering to an uncompromising ethic that combines stern humility with compassion, Berry rallies a sense of hope (though "the task of hope becomes harder") and responsibility for confronting growing physical and political problems, represented here by the tortured political rhetoric he unpacks in "Caught in the Middle." Moreover, he offers a range of practical, "small solutions"-changes of principle, not policy-that both chasten the reader and inspire him or her to continue "our long, necessary, difficult, happy effort" to protect "our only world." These essays are classic Berry, balancing the fiery conservationist prophet with the lucid and thoughtful poet; the reflective farmer with the visionary writer. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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