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Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea 1st edition by Hanson, Victor Davis (1996) Hardcover
America's disappearing family farmer is often portrayed as either a figure of pitiable tragedy or glorified romance. But in one of the most unusual books ever written on farming, farmer and Greek scholar Victor Davis Hanson eloquently explains how neither portrait conveys what really matters about farming. As the family farm all but vanishes in our nation, it is neither food production nor the environment that will most suffer - but rather our nation will lose its last real connection with the virtues and work ethic that our founding fathers had themselves inherited from the wisdom of classical Greek culture and upon which American society rests. A fifth-generation vine and fruit grower, Hanson furnishes unsparing portraits of these vanishing agrarians through tales of their perseverance, pain, faith - and baser tendencies as well. Painting a vivid contrast between true agrarians and the corrupt routines of contemporary life, Hanson provides a brutally honest memoir that will contradict quaint notions of the family farm of movies and television. But out of this intimate essay on the trials of working the land emerges something of greater a defense of the agrarian idea as central to the virtues that shaped America, rooted in both the principles of the ancient Greeks and the modern knowledge we hold true today.
Hardcover
First published April 1, 1996
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About the author
Victor Davis Hanson
81 books1,172 followersVictor Davis Hanson was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (BA, Classics, 1975), the American School of Classical Studies (1978-79) and received his Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University in 1980. He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 29, 2018
Despite my mixed feelings about the author's work, I find that he is rarely if ever more appealing than when he is talking about his life as a farmer. Coming as I do from an agrarian background on my father's side of the family [1], there is a lot to relate to here. This book is somewhat of a memoir of the lack of success in farming for Hanson's own family farm operation and that of his neighbors, and while I admittedly know little about raisin farming (although more than enough to know that raisins do not have their own trees--a frequent joke about clueless city folk that the author makes in this book), this book does give a good understanding of the struggles faced by him and those who like him are quixotically devoted to farming in spite of its growing obsolescence. And in defending the agrarian ideal, the author has some good things to say about culture and the importance of yeoman farms like that my family ran for so many generations, and about what is lost when such people are driven into either serfdom or the city.
Overall, this book takes about 300 pages to cover roughly a decade in the life of the the author as a farmer, along with some context. After a preface and introduction the author discusses the context of his family farm and how the land was acquired and who it was that built it up (1). He then talks about raisin farming and what makes it unique, being a somewhat antiquated manner of farming that has so far not greatly been benefited by machinery (2). The author discusses the great raisin crash of 1983, the grim reading of it justifies by itself the time spent reading this book (3). After that the author discusses his tragicomic efforts to save the farm by turning to new varieties of plants that predictably flop (4). This leads to a more melancholy discussion of the efforts of one Bus Barzagus to grow pear-apples on a mountain (5,7), which book-end a chapter on the author's failures to grow certain types of table grapes and plums (6). The author then closes this gloomy but fierce book with chapters on the heroes of the agrarian pantheon--an unusual set of people carved out of flint--along with a look at the last generation of American agrarians, with a postscript that ends this book on a decidedly downbeat note.
Like many of the author's crusty neighbors, this book is not kind, but it is right. Family farming is doomed in this nation for all kinds of reasons, including laws that are making it impossible to use children as a free labor force, the steadfast refusal of either Democrats or Republicans to cast off illusions of gigantism and economies of scale, and a strong disinterest and inability of people growing up in family farms to continue the tradition. Independent family farms are a dying breed, and the author does a good job at showing how this happens not merely from a general perspective but what it looks like to those on the ground trying vainly to get their royal plums to set and trying to make money off of Thompson seedless raisins, itself a largely impossible task. By not succumbing to the tendency to romanticize family farming, the author presents a grim but honest and deeply insightful view of what its moribund status means for the fate of the American republic. The prognosis there is just as grim as that for family farms, largely for the reason that it is the people of the land whose native crustiness and suspicion of fads are almost the only break present on our society's headlong rush towards self-destruction.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
Overall, this book takes about 300 pages to cover roughly a decade in the life of the the author as a farmer, along with some context. After a preface and introduction the author discusses the context of his family farm and how the land was acquired and who it was that built it up (1). He then talks about raisin farming and what makes it unique, being a somewhat antiquated manner of farming that has so far not greatly been benefited by machinery (2). The author discusses the great raisin crash of 1983, the grim reading of it justifies by itself the time spent reading this book (3). After that the author discusses his tragicomic efforts to save the farm by turning to new varieties of plants that predictably flop (4). This leads to a more melancholy discussion of the efforts of one Bus Barzagus to grow pear-apples on a mountain (5,7), which book-end a chapter on the author's failures to grow certain types of table grapes and plums (6). The author then closes this gloomy but fierce book with chapters on the heroes of the agrarian pantheon--an unusual set of people carved out of flint--along with a look at the last generation of American agrarians, with a postscript that ends this book on a decidedly downbeat note.
Like many of the author's crusty neighbors, this book is not kind, but it is right. Family farming is doomed in this nation for all kinds of reasons, including laws that are making it impossible to use children as a free labor force, the steadfast refusal of either Democrats or Republicans to cast off illusions of gigantism and economies of scale, and a strong disinterest and inability of people growing up in family farms to continue the tradition. Independent family farms are a dying breed, and the author does a good job at showing how this happens not merely from a general perspective but what it looks like to those on the ground trying vainly to get their royal plums to set and trying to make money off of Thompson seedless raisins, itself a largely impossible task. By not succumbing to the tendency to romanticize family farming, the author presents a grim but honest and deeply insightful view of what its moribund status means for the fate of the American republic. The prognosis there is just as grim as that for family farms, largely for the reason that it is the people of the land whose native crustiness and suspicion of fads are almost the only break present on our society's headlong rush towards self-destruction.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
December 2, 2021
I read this for class, but you could probably have guessed that. Never in my life have I ever had an interest in raisin farming and this is coming from someone who’s family has owned a vineyard. Reading a novel centering around raisin farming worse, a pessimistic view none the less EVEN WORSE. Comparing the art of raisin farming and calling it a “cosmology” and constantly comparing it to the works of Hesiod and Aristotle… it’s truly not that deep. He literally calls it’s a beautiful art because it’s so simple and three steps, SO CLEARLY IT’S NOT THAT DEEP.
July 25, 2021
As the author admits on page 53: “I think only of individuals, not causes, theories, or castes.”
Such a (very USAmerican) approach is unlikely to enlighten.
Such a (very USAmerican) approach is unlikely to enlighten.
April 7, 2022
This book reads like a lament and I thought it was going to be a little different than it was. It raised some good things to think about, but felt a bit rambling. Full disclosure, I wasn’t able to bring myself to finish the whole thing. I found this while listening to Yale Open course series on the Classics and Dr Kagan mentioned this book. I figured I’d give it a shot as my wife and I have some farming aspirations. There are a few take aways:
First, the owned western “family farm” as a sustainable and profitable way to live is dead. So don’t try it unless you have another source of income. If you have any inkling to someday “live off the land” and make some money, maybe kiss the modern world behind, you really should keep your job or stay in school. You’re going to be fighting an fierce uphill battle. Big farm corporations use their power of volume to drive prices down low. Government regulation made by people who don’t really get it will create hurtles to your efforts. The estimated minimum acreage in the 1990s (maybe it’s changed) for a farmer to become profitable is 3-4 THOUSAND acres. Even if you found $5,000 an acre (which would be a steal out East) just to buy the land alone to get started would be 15million dollars. Let’s not mention a home or tools, irrigation… you get it.
Second, the first point above is a complete tragedy. Perhaps the origins of a forthcoming disaster. You see, Victor David Hanson wisely points out that for the last 2500 years of western civilization the family farmer - those who own the land they farm - has been a pillar of western society and a natural “check” to the insanity and utter moral corruption that habitually flows from our urban centers. Their natural lifestyle forces them to develop a certain level of work ethic and practical humility. With most or a good size of the west being those people, it will naturally play out on how people vote or what they care about in society. All of that is gone. What it means, to be decided.
Farming seems to be now for homesteaders, who have other sources of income or big corporations. We will see what or if that means something.
First, the owned western “family farm” as a sustainable and profitable way to live is dead. So don’t try it unless you have another source of income. If you have any inkling to someday “live off the land” and make some money, maybe kiss the modern world behind, you really should keep your job or stay in school. You’re going to be fighting an fierce uphill battle. Big farm corporations use their power of volume to drive prices down low. Government regulation made by people who don’t really get it will create hurtles to your efforts. The estimated minimum acreage in the 1990s (maybe it’s changed) for a farmer to become profitable is 3-4 THOUSAND acres. Even if you found $5,000 an acre (which would be a steal out East) just to buy the land alone to get started would be 15million dollars. Let’s not mention a home or tools, irrigation… you get it.
Second, the first point above is a complete tragedy. Perhaps the origins of a forthcoming disaster. You see, Victor David Hanson wisely points out that for the last 2500 years of western civilization the family farmer - those who own the land they farm - has been a pillar of western society and a natural “check” to the insanity and utter moral corruption that habitually flows from our urban centers. Their natural lifestyle forces them to develop a certain level of work ethic and practical humility. With most or a good size of the west being those people, it will naturally play out on how people vote or what they care about in society. All of that is gone. What it means, to be decided.
Farming seems to be now for homesteaders, who have other sources of income or big corporations. We will see what or if that means something.
December 15, 2020
My favorite part of Hanson's book is his portraits of the various cantankerous characters who are involved in growing fruit in the San Joaquin Valley. It's a non-romantic paean to agrarian values. As a writer, Hanson is no parsimonious pruner of vines but a grower of rambling sentences and digressions. They are almost always interesting, but this vineyard could have been pruned a bit more.
As a fairly new ag journalist, I read his proposals for saving family farming at the end with interest (abolish the Dept. of Agriculture and state farm boards?!?) but they are completely impractical. All such proposals, from Hanson's unorthodox and quirky mix of libertarianism and regulation to the utopian visions of food technologists and would-be defenders of smallholders like Tom Philpott, would result in much higher food prices for consumers. All the reformers seem to agree that the average consumer is paying "too little" for food, whatever that means. The greens want to get rid of McDonalds and the agrarians want to support family farmers by having consumers pay what Hanson calls the "real cost" of food production. But the entire food system is geared toward cheap food. Since everyone eats and everyone wants food as cheaply as possible, the interests of eaters will always outweigh the interests of food producers. That's just the way it is.
As a fairly new ag journalist, I read his proposals for saving family farming at the end with interest (abolish the Dept. of Agriculture and state farm boards?!?) but they are completely impractical. All such proposals, from Hanson's unorthodox and quirky mix of libertarianism and regulation to the utopian visions of food technologists and would-be defenders of smallholders like Tom Philpott, would result in much higher food prices for consumers. All the reformers seem to agree that the average consumer is paying "too little" for food, whatever that means. The greens want to get rid of McDonalds and the agrarians want to support family farmers by having consumers pay what Hanson calls the "real cost" of food production. But the entire food system is geared toward cheap food. Since everyone eats and everyone wants food as cheaply as possible, the interests of eaters will always outweigh the interests of food producers. That's just the way it is.
December 20, 2014
Poignant and incredibly honest work that outlines the reality of American agrarianism and it's lack of cultural relevance. Family farms, so often unimpressive and unromantic leeches on personal finances and mental/emotional health, have no place in our society. We are determined to press forward in the name of "progress" and thus leave behind the social and moral benefits of agriculture which have woven together the tapestry of Western civilization for thousands of years. Family farms are dying away... And will continue to do so until a small collection of corporate farms conduct all agriculture in the US, and the ignorant masses will applaud the removal of the soft, still voice of personal and cultural conscience which tells them this ought not to be...
August 16, 2011
Pretty much anything by Victor Davis Hanson is worth reading. I re-read this book in August 2011. This book is a painful, brutal look at American agriculture, its decline, and its relation to American democracy.
July 17, 2012
Incredibly depressing. But good.
July 3, 2010
Wow, I read this book in one sitting. Really gripping. Despite all the doom and gloom, it makes me want to go be a farmer!
July 8, 2011
Necessary. As conscience. And as history.
March 23, 2018
Overall, this is mediocre. It is a long essay with various stories embedded within it.
The story of his farming experience, plus the shorter stories of some of his neighbors and colleagues, gives worthwhile insight into a small part of the farming business in California, primarily in the 1980s. Hanson makes some good observations in what was wrong in the business then (which likely has not changed much). I think his insight into the mindset of the small family farmer is also worthwhile.
The book is very poorly organized, with the personal and neighbor experience stories scattered throughout a 300 page book, which destroyed the narrative flow. There was a tremendous amount of repetition, especially of his complaints, which I found annoying. His views on morality, the value of work and corruption of welfare, and war, likely represent many farmers, but do not consider that the US economy has been increasing unemployment for decades and that wars kill a lot of innocent people.
My viewpoint just after finishing this book is that it is worth reading for one interested in the subject, but would be far better if restructured and edited for excess repetition.
What follows is indepedant of my reaction to the book, but confirms my misgivings about the author's moral credibility, and makes me doubt how much he actually knows what he writes about. It is based on my scan through multiple reviews of a number of books he wrote about a subject he seems to know little about other than US propaganda, which is as truthful as Nazi propaganda or anyone else's: Victor Davis Hanson is a big armchair fan of waging war against civilian populations in this day and age. His background is farming and ancient Greek studies. His books on the latter concentrate on war. In current wars, the death of hundreds of thousands of babies in Iraq was not nearly enough for him, apparently. I did not downrate Fields Without Dreams for this, as it plays a minor role here, but I am highly suspect of his credibility and disgusted by his immorality.
The story of his farming experience, plus the shorter stories of some of his neighbors and colleagues, gives worthwhile insight into a small part of the farming business in California, primarily in the 1980s. Hanson makes some good observations in what was wrong in the business then (which likely has not changed much). I think his insight into the mindset of the small family farmer is also worthwhile.
The book is very poorly organized, with the personal and neighbor experience stories scattered throughout a 300 page book, which destroyed the narrative flow. There was a tremendous amount of repetition, especially of his complaints, which I found annoying. His views on morality, the value of work and corruption of welfare, and war, likely represent many farmers, but do not consider that the US economy has been increasing unemployment for decades and that wars kill a lot of innocent people.
My viewpoint just after finishing this book is that it is worth reading for one interested in the subject, but would be far better if restructured and edited for excess repetition.
What follows is indepedant of my reaction to the book, but confirms my misgivings about the author's moral credibility, and makes me doubt how much he actually knows what he writes about. It is based on my scan through multiple reviews of a number of books he wrote about a subject he seems to know little about other than US propaganda, which is as truthful as Nazi propaganda or anyone else's: Victor Davis Hanson is a big armchair fan of waging war against civilian populations in this day and age. His background is farming and ancient Greek studies. His books on the latter concentrate on war. In current wars, the death of hundreds of thousands of babies in Iraq was not nearly enough for him, apparently. I did not downrate Fields Without Dreams for this, as it plays a minor role here, but I am highly suspect of his credibility and disgusted by his immorality.
October 26, 2021
Agrarianism, in the American context, often harkins thoughts of our 19th Century roots, and it all too often opens the spectre of the Southern Agrarian movement which was so intertwined with our nation's history of slavery.
The reality of agrarianism today is incredibly different. The family farm, as Victor Davis Hanson explains, now has a limited place in our society. As we move forward in the name of "progress" we often forget the importance of Homo faber and Homo arator. Hanson chronicles the travails of raising raisins in the face of an indifferent universe and openly hostile governments.It is a book to read prior to a visit to one of our many "superstores."
The reality of agrarianism today is incredibly different. The family farm, as Victor Davis Hanson explains, now has a limited place in our society. As we move forward in the name of "progress" we often forget the importance of Homo faber and Homo arator. Hanson chronicles the travails of raising raisins in the face of an indifferent universe and openly hostile governments.It is a book to read prior to a visit to one of our many "superstores."
July 12, 2011
Part lamentation, part tragedy, and part chronicle.
VDH is a remarkable writer, weaving themes from his classicist education into the plight of the American family farmer, and more specifically, his family's raisin farm near Fresno, at the edge of the millenium.
I really liked this book, even allotting for the bigotry and stereotyping VDH displays.
VDH is a remarkable writer, weaving themes from his classicist education into the plight of the American family farmer, and more specifically, his family's raisin farm near Fresno, at the edge of the millenium.
I really liked this book, even allotting for the bigotry and stereotyping VDH displays.
May 14, 2008
I read this in college as part of my preparations for writing my senior thesis on agrarian political philosophy. I don't always (or often) agree with VDH, but I think that whatever you think about him, he will certainly make you think.
February 14, 2021
This is a great read about the immense difficulty and the great joy of being a farmer in what was once a great agrarian based society. I never imagined how much trauma there was involved in raisin farming. This is an eye-opening book.
June 21, 2012
At this point it just seems like the author is acrimonious.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews