The Way of Ignorance And Other Essays

by Berry, Wendell

• ISBN13: 9781593761196
• ISBN10: 1593761198
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-17
• Publisher: PERSEUS

Summary

The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, Terry Schiavo-contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding 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.

Author Biography

Wendell Berry is the author of fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays. He was recently awarded the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Louis Bromfield Society Award. For over forty years he has lived and farmed with his wife, Tanya, in Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
PART I
Secrecy vs. Rights	3	(4)
Contempt for Small Places	7	(2)
Rugged Individualism	9	(4)
We Have Begun	13	(4)
Some Notes for the Kerry Campaign, If Wanted	17	(4)
Compromise, Hell!	21	(8)
Charlie Fisher	29	(10)
PART II
Imagination in Place	39	(14)
The Way of Ignorance	53	(16)
The Purpose of a Coherent Community	69	(12)
Quantity vs. Form	81	(10)
Renewing Husbandry	91	(14)
Agriculture from the Roots Up	105	(8)
Local Knowledge in the Age of Information	113	(14)
The Burden of the Gospels	127	(14)
PART III
Letter to Daniel Kemmis	141	(10)
Daniel Kemmis Replies	151	(8)
The Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land Health Movement, by Courtney White	159