Synopses & Reviews
In a democratic commonwealth, what are the costs and consequences of rugged individualism?
What, in the fullest sense, is involved in our National Security?
When considering Weapons of Mass Destruction, does our inventory include soil loss, climate change, and ground water poisoning? And should we add Economic Weapons of Mass Destruction to our list of targets?
Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the "free market" or "free enterprise"?
What is the price of ownership without affection?
These and several other questions lie at the heart of Wendell Berry's latest collection of essays, writing "motivated by fear of our violence to one another and to the world, and my hope that we might do better." Setting aside abstraction in favor of clarity, coherence, and passion, this new book provides a setting of immediate danger and profound hope. The core of this collection "Imagination in Place," "The Way of Ignorance," "Quantity and Form," "The Purpose of a Coherent Community," "Compromise, Hell!" consists of some of the finest essays of Wendell Berry's long career, and the whole offers an exhilarating sense of purpose and a clear call to action.
Synopsis
The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations--contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, responds with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the "free market" or "free enterprise"? What is really involved in our national security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career.
Synopsis
A soulful, searching collection of essays that tackle the complexities of contemporary America from "the prophet of rural America" (New York Times).
From the war in Iraq to Hurricane Katrina to the political sniping engendered by Supreme Court nominations--contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, "the prophet of rural America" (New York Times) and one of the country's foremost cultural critics, responds with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the free market or free enterprise? What is really involved in our national security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career. "Everything in the book illumines." --Booklist
" Berry's] poems, novels and essays . . . are probably the most sustained contemporary articulation of America's agrarian, Jeffersonian ideal." --Publishers Weekly
"Wendell Berry is one of those rare individuals who speaks to us always of responsibility, of the individual cultivation of an active and aware participation in the arts of life." --The Bloomsbury Review