Essays 1969-1990 (LOA #316)

by Wendell Berry, Jack Shoemaker (Editor)

In celebration of Berry’s extraordinary six-decade-long career, Library of America presents a two-volume edition of his essays, selected by the author and his longtime editor, Jack Shoemaker, which reveals as never before the evolution of Berry’s thoughts and concerns as a farmer, neighbor, citizen, teacher, activist, and ecological philosopher. This first volume includes the whole of Berry’s now classic book The Unsettling of America (1970) and thirty-two essays from eight collections published from 1969 to 1990: The Long-Legged House (1969), The Hidden Wound (1970), A Continuous Harmony (1972), Recollected Essays: 1969–1980 (1981), The Gift of Good Land (1981), Standing by Words (1983), Home Economics (1987), and What Are People For? (1990).

In The Unsettling of America, Berry explores how and why, even in our modern global economy, locally adapted farming is essential to the flourishing of culture, to healthy living and stable communities, and ultimately to our survival as a species. In his 1995 Afterword to the Third Edition, included here, Berry notes with mounting urgency that his argument about the long-term ecological and human costs of industrial agriculture has “not had the happy fate of being proved wrong.”

Other essays in this volume include his early autobiographical pieces “The Long-Legged House” and “A Native Hill,” the indispensable “Think Little,” “Writer and Region,” “Preserving Wildness,” “The Work of Local Culture,” and the still provocative “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” in which he posits his standards for embracing a new technology, including: “It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.”

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Agriculture

841 pages, Hardcover

Published May 21, 2019

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[alex angelosanto · Rating 5 out of 5]

going to try add more to this later, but this had a pretty profound effect on me. I should swap my TV for a garden

[Jeanne Grunert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Wendell Berry's prose. He writes with precision and elegance in a way that few have mastered. His characters are memorable and realistic. Some of his stories are humorous, but it's a gentle, good-natured humor. He brings rural living to life without preaching and from a view that is often lost in the modern world. Highly recommended, especially his novels, "Nathan Coulter" and "A Place on Earth."

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly recommend this essay collection to anyone interested in the development of corporation agriculture in the United States, rural life and farming, or the role of culture in nature and vice versa. Berry writes with precision and unchanging moral guidelines (and to my understanding has done so his whole life.) Born and raised in Henry Country, Kentucky, Berry leaves for a period of time at the start of his writing career, but ultimately end ups on a farm in rural Kentucky, to live off the land and become a "regional writer" in a sense. There is a very interesting essay on the topic of regionalism in the literary world (which he argues should not exist- all literature should exist in our world, in our culture.) Regionalism often leads to romanticization or condemnation of the people it writes of.( I am currently reading a book on the Ozark region of Arkansas and this does become apparent.) There are other essays on a wide range of topics- Christianity in the modern world, the difference between a road and a path, the ever present push of our society to advance, technology, and food systems. This collection also contains The Unsettling of America, which I have read but would like to return to. Overall very interesting and thought provoking!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think he is so very right that most of living wrong, I'm just not sure where his philosophy actually gets us. It never really worked for most people to own their own farms and would not work now. He also really does not get why people objected to his "wife as stenographer solution" to not owning a computer. Not all women want to be the woman behind the man, and not all men are worth it! He seems unable to see how he leaves so many out of his vision. But still, I found reading this provocative in the best way and wish we had more such contrarian thinkers!
My favorite essays in here were actually the earliest ones which were more memoir of his childhood and early adult life and settling on the farm. The first essay (I think called The Rise) was a story of canoeing on flood waters and then how those flood waters return to damage a family cabin again and again. I was reading that right after the devastating floods in Texas and it was uncomfortable to balance the tone of these essays with the tragic stories I had been reading. And also made me think that the theme of so many lives has been our relationship with the water. Something that our lives all depend on, that also takes so many from us.

[Jessie]

I read this book in chunks over the past year and it’s too much and was too spread out an experience to rate. Some was very very good, some got way too vague and navel gazing, and after the compilation started compiling the points got a little repetitive, which is to be expected. A lot sure soaked in though.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely skipped many chapters in the middle there…a little too boring if you will…but the chapters I liked had me equally at peace and enraged. Loved the one about not owning a computer, feminism, the unsettling of America, and the long legged house :)

[Mills College Library]

814.54 B5348a 2019

[Adam Carrico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have I mentioned how much I love Wendell Berry?