The Unsettling of America
“We have given up the understanding — dropped it out of our language and so out of our thought — that we and our country create one another, depend on one another, are literally part of one another; that our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land are part of one another, so all who are living as neighbors here, human and plant and animal, are part of one another, and so cannot possibly flourish alone; that, therefore, our culture must be our response to our place, our culture and our place are images of each other and inseparable from each other, and so neither can be better than they other.”
Wendell Berry is a farmer and poet, outraged at what is happening with the spread of industrial agriculture. He details how our connection to the land is the definition of our culture, and how our industrial culture is killing both itself and the planet. If you read just one book about food, this should be it. Written over 50 years ago, Berry’s insight is still urgent and could have been written yesterday.