Overview
Wendell Berry proposes, and earnestly hopes, that people will learn once more to care for their local communities, and so begin a restoration that might spread over our entire nation and beyond. The renewed development of local economies would help preserve rural diversity despite the burgeoning global economy that threatens to homogenize and compromise communities all over the world. From modern health care to the practice of forestry, from local focus to national resolve, Berry argues, there can never be a separation between global ecosystems and human communities - the two are intricately connected; the health and survival of one depends upon the other. Another Turn of the Crank reaches to the heart of Berry's concern and vision for the future, for America and for the world.Six new essays on sustainability and stewardship appear in this collection by one of America's most important cultural critics. Berry proposes, and earnestly hopes, that people will learn once more to care for their local communities, and so begin the restoration that might spread over the entire nation and beyond.
Synopsis
Wendell Berry proposes, and earnestly hopes, that people will learn once more to care for their local communities, and so begin a restoration that might spread over our entire nation and beyond. The renewed development of local economies would help preserve rural diversity despite the burgeoning global economy that threatens to homogenize and compromise communities all over the world. From modern health care to the practice of forestry, from local focus to national resolve, Berry argues, there can never be a separation between global ecosystems and human communities - the two are intricately connected; the health and survival of one depends upon the other. Another Turn of the Crank reaches to the heart of Berry's concern and vision for the future, for America and for the world.
Publishers Weekly
Berry, a novelist, poet and essayist (What Are People For?), focuses here on the importance of small communities in this latest collection of thought-provoking pieces. The decline of agriculture, according to Berry, was brought about by corporations that induced farmers to rely on technology and artificial fertilizers, which destroyed topsoil and produced tainted crops. Berry believes small farmers should grow food primarily for the local population, without using fossil fuels or chemicals. In another article, he argues against abortion and for a sexuality related to fertility rather than to individual gratification. His closing essay, on modern health care, deals with the tendency of the medical establishment to view a patient as a machine that can be cured by technology rather than as a human being who must be healed by love as well as medical treatment. (Nov.)