The Essential Agrarian Reader

by Wirzba, Norman

• ISBN13: 9780813122854
• ISBN10: 0813122856
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-10
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky

Summary

The twenty-first century offers a host of daunting cultural and environmental problems facing a booming world population: community disintegration, social anxiety, international terrorism, voter disenchantment, a growing gap between rich and poor, habitat destruction, biopatenting/biotechnology, global warming, and resource depletion. Standing as an alternative to the modern paradigms in industry, technology, and economics, agrarianism is not a throwback to a mythical rural past but a sustained and coherent attempt to live faithfully and responsibly in a world of limited resources. With advocates from around the globe, agrarianism is a compelling worldview that challenges the shortcomings of the new global and industrial/technological order. Not simply focused on farming, the agrarian outlook encourages the development of practices and policies that promote the health of land and culture, emphasizing that responsible action occurs most readily when citizens live within local economies where the distance between production and consumption is as small as possible.

Author Biography

Norman Wirzba, associate professor and chair of the philosophy department at Georgetown College

Table of Contents

Foreword
Barbara Kingsolver	ix
Introduction: Thy Agrarianism Matters-Even to Urbanites
Norman Wirzba	1	(22)
PART 1: AGRARIAN PRINCIPLES AND PRIORITIES
1. The Agrarian Standard
Wendell Berry	23	(11)
2. The Resettling of America
Brian Donahue	34	(18)
3. The Mind-Set of Agrarianism ... New and Old
Maurice Telleen	52	(10)
4. Sustainable Economic Development: Definitions, Principles, Policies
Herman E. Daly	62	(18)
5. Placing the Soul: An Agrarian Philosophical Principle
Norman Wirzba	80	(21)
PART 2: ASSESSING OUR SITUATION
6. The Current State of Agriculture: Does It Have a Future?
Frederick Kirschenmann	101	(20)
7. Globalization and the War against Farmers and the Land
Vandana Shiva	121	(19)
8. The Agrarian Mind: Mere Nostalgia or a Practical Necessity?
Wes Jackson	140	(14)
9. All Flesh Is Grass: A Hopeful Look at the Future of Agrarianism
Gene Logsdon	154	(17)
10. The Uses of Prophecy
David W. Orr	171	(20)
PART 3: PUUING AGRARIANISM TO WORK
11. Country and City: The Common Vision of Agrarians and New Urbaniste
Benjamin E. Northrop and Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomh	191	(21)
12. New Agrarians: Local Innovators
Susan Witt	212	(10)
13. The Legal and Legislative Front: The Fight Against Industrial Agriculture
Hank Graddy	222	(15)
14. Private Property Rights in Land: An Agrarian View
Eric T. Freyfogle	237	(22)
15. Going to Work
Wendell Berry	259	(8)
Further Reading	267	(4)
Contributors	271	(2)
Index	273