What do you think?
Rate this book
Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back
When Eleanor Agnew, her husband, and two young children moved to the Maine woods in 1975, the back-to-the-land movement had already attracted untold numbers of converts who had grown increasingly estranged from mainstream American society. Visionaries by the millions were moving into woods, mountains, orchards, and farmlands in order to disconnect from the supposedly deleterious influences of modern life. Fed up with capitalism, TV, Washington politics, and 9-to-5 jobs, they took up residence in log cabins, A-frames, tents, old schoolhouses, and run-down farmhouses; grew their own crops; hauled water from wells; avoided doctors in favor of natural cures; and renounced energy-guzzling appliances. This is their story, in all its glories and agonies, its triumphs and disasters (many of them richly amusing), told by a woman who experienced the simple life firsthand but has also read widely and interviewed scores of people who went back to the land. Ms. Agnew tells how they found joy and camaraderie, studied their issues of Mother Earth News, coped with frozen laundry and grinding poverty, and persevered or gave up. Most of them, it turns out, came back from freedom and self-sufficiency, either by returning to urban life or by dressing up their primitive rural existence—but they held onto the values they gained during their back-to-the-land experience. Back from the Land is filled with juicy details and inspired with a naïve idealism, but the attraction of the life it describes is undeniable. Here is a book to delight those who remember how it was, those who still kick themselves for not taking the chance, and those of a new generation who are just now thinking about it.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2004
4 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
March 10, 2017
This was highly amusing. A great account of a homesteader's personal experience. I have to give her credit for sticking it out for so long. And I'm always so happy to have photographs in books like these, and there were 20. Agnew gives us the good, the bad, and the in-between of homesteading. She makes some very wise observations. She learned a lot from the experience and was clearly enriched, even though it ultimately was not the lifestyle she wanted to maintain indefinatley. And really, who could blame her?
January 31, 2024
If you were in your late teens or early twenties in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and if you espoused the typical hippie points of view, chances are you at least thought about moving far away from "civilization" and living a simpler, less materialistic life. This is the story of many who did just that, and what happened to them. Most were so determined to live off the grid they eschewed indoor plumbing, electricity, and any kind of heat except firewood. The majority of stories Eleanor Agnew tells involve people who lived on farms or communes in areas like Maine, upstate New York, the mountains of West Virginia, and Michigan. Getting through six months of severe winters under these kinds of conditions was arduous and disheartening. Some people lasted less than a year. The author lasted five years, but the whole "experiment" was her husband's idea, not hers, and there are times in the book where her bitterness about those "wasted" years comes through loud and clear.
The good news is the people who made it through this experience, whether for a short time or for a number of years, generally maintained those same values of simplicity and living close to the earth even when they rejoined the mainstream. Many went back to college and got advanced degrees and either taught the things they believed in or became lawyers or advocates with the goal of helping those in need. Many had very positive memories of their years of living on the land, and it is in reporting those memories that the author's bias is most clearly seen. She seems skeptical that anyone could have positive feelings toward a life that was so deprived of comfort and modern conveniences. For most people it was the friendships and camaraderie that they missed, and some groups who once lived in communes or other types of communal living still get together on a regular basis, or at least have maintained contact.
Reading about all the difficulties people faced during the transition from modern life to basically living like people from two hundred years ago, it is very easy to be scornful of their naivete and lack of knowledge and foresight. But the idea of voluntary simplicity and minimalism is with us still, just in a different form than it was back in the 1970s.
The good news is the people who made it through this experience, whether for a short time or for a number of years, generally maintained those same values of simplicity and living close to the earth even when they rejoined the mainstream. Many went back to college and got advanced degrees and either taught the things they believed in or became lawyers or advocates with the goal of helping those in need. Many had very positive memories of their years of living on the land, and it is in reporting those memories that the author's bias is most clearly seen. She seems skeptical that anyone could have positive feelings toward a life that was so deprived of comfort and modern conveniences. For most people it was the friendships and camaraderie that they missed, and some groups who once lived in communes or other types of communal living still get together on a regular basis, or at least have maintained contact.
Reading about all the difficulties people faced during the transition from modern life to basically living like people from two hundred years ago, it is very easy to be scornful of their naivete and lack of knowledge and foresight. But the idea of voluntary simplicity and minimalism is with us still, just in a different form than it was back in the 1970s.
March 26, 2015
It's fascinating to read current history, something in this case I just missed. Yet I recall the granny dresses and the pioneer shows on TV, and their phenomenal lack of realism. All of the people in this book took their middle class ideals to rural areas and stayed for awhile. Boredom seemed to be a major reason they returned, coupled with their cramped homesteads, and the subsequent lack of privacy. Relationships spun into turmoil when people either created space between them and lost their relationships to their partners, or relied to heavily on one person. Most of the homesteaders were educated and eventually craved more stimulation than weeding or chopping wood. Laundry was a major curse for the women who used washboards or the dangerous and frustrating wringer washers. it seems like many of the communes were located in the Northeast which prevented people from doing car washing- a paint bucket in the back of the truck or in the trunk of the car filled with soapy water upon leaving the house, and drained, then filled with rinse water on the return trip. This was something people with diapers would and do find useful. The book does make the point that rural life is an automotive culture and car maintenance was often an underestimated expense. Winters in unheated cabins sounded like a season in hell to me. The discussion of going insurance-less was particularly fascinating in light of national healthcare reform and it's current unraveling. This was an interesting glimpse into the 70's communards, but it is an anecdotal rather than an academic sociological study.
February 21, 2010
Lest we should forget that a bunch of people (of my parents' generation) already decided to go back to the land, and came back. This is an honest, interesting account of all the not-so-enchanting aspects of living off the land in the 1970's.
Working on a farm myself (for 3 months) is all it took me to realize that pastoral bliss is not all its chalked up to be. The beauty is in the balance of now and then.
Working on a farm myself (for 3 months) is all it took me to realize that pastoral bliss is not all its chalked up to be. The beauty is in the balance of now and then.
June 20, 2019
Thank for permission to say nevermind 😇
December 20, 2007
This book was sort of interesting. At least, the first half was. I got all excited about the ideals that lead these people to go back to the land. But, the end was sort of a wet blanket.
Basically, all you need to know is "It didn't work. We were poor. We didn't like being poor. It was really hard. So we went back." The subtext that really bummed me out was "But, we didn't *really* sell out, because we all work in acedemia now."
The first part of the book was awesome. The second part basically sounded like the author trying to justify and rationalize why she couldn't do it. That's obvious--she was young, naive, unprepared, and it was a hard, hard life. No one blames anyone for not liking it. But, to write 100 pages basically defending herself? That got kind of old.
On the plus side, this book made me want to read more about the Back to the Land movement. So, at least it sparked some curiousity.
Basically, all you need to know is "It didn't work. We were poor. We didn't like being poor. It was really hard. So we went back." The subtext that really bummed me out was "But, we didn't *really* sell out, because we all work in acedemia now."
The first part of the book was awesome. The second part basically sounded like the author trying to justify and rationalize why she couldn't do it. That's obvious--she was young, naive, unprepared, and it was a hard, hard life. No one blames anyone for not liking it. But, to write 100 pages basically defending herself? That got kind of old.
On the plus side, this book made me want to read more about the Back to the Land movement. So, at least it sparked some curiousity.
July 18, 2012
An interesting contrast to the modern farm movement. Well written investigation of the motivations and discoveries of the back to the land movement in the 1970s. I'll be interested to see if the current crop of off-the-grid idealists ends up with the same disillusionments, or creates a viable alternative culture of food.
December 29, 2022
Back from the Land by Eleanor Agnew is a touching, often funny account of the author's experiences as a young aspiring homesteader. The author moved to Maine with her husband in 1975 as part of the back to land movement, cultivating big dreams of a pristine, simple life close to nature. However, her hopes were soon dashed. The main part of the book is dedicated to telling the story of just how that happened.
I've thoroughly enjoyed Agnew's book. Most of all because of the detailed accounts of all the ways things can go wrong when moving back to the land. Agnew faithfully describes the cold winters, the isolation, economic destitution the difficulties of maintain a family or living with a community. As someone who has long had a dream of moving to the land, this is a welcome reality check that helps visualize all the challenges one might not imagine from their comfy suburban home. Agnew does a great job at detailing why most people who joined the back to the land movement did not hold out and ended up going back go civilization.
While Angew's book is readable and entertaining it should be noted that her perspective appears quite biased. The author's attempts to explain why civilized life works better than the back to land option comes off as overly bourgeois. While some 1970s doom prophesying regarding the fate of mainstream society was overblown, a lot of the criticism did hit the mark. The price for living in today's technologized society is high. Sometimes almost unbearable. Agnew's book appears to downplay all the shortcomings of that modern, tech-controlled, alienated, and polluting way of life, and gives an impression as if all is well with civilization. Writing from her comfy suburban house the author appears at times complacent with the civilization she decided to leave back at 1975. I wonder how she would have described things differently had she written this book in the current age of social mayhem and climatic chaos assisted by a technological civilization and way of living her book seems to legitimate and praise (the book was published in 2004).
Given these limitations, I've found the book readable and enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning about some of the more unsavory aspects of moving to live close to the land. I'll now be turning to other books who may provide the complementary sides of the story, untold by Angew.
I've thoroughly enjoyed Agnew's book. Most of all because of the detailed accounts of all the ways things can go wrong when moving back to the land. Agnew faithfully describes the cold winters, the isolation, economic destitution the difficulties of maintain a family or living with a community. As someone who has long had a dream of moving to the land, this is a welcome reality check that helps visualize all the challenges one might not imagine from their comfy suburban home. Agnew does a great job at detailing why most people who joined the back to the land movement did not hold out and ended up going back go civilization.
While Angew's book is readable and entertaining it should be noted that her perspective appears quite biased. The author's attempts to explain why civilized life works better than the back to land option comes off as overly bourgeois. While some 1970s doom prophesying regarding the fate of mainstream society was overblown, a lot of the criticism did hit the mark. The price for living in today's technologized society is high. Sometimes almost unbearable. Agnew's book appears to downplay all the shortcomings of that modern, tech-controlled, alienated, and polluting way of life, and gives an impression as if all is well with civilization. Writing from her comfy suburban house the author appears at times complacent with the civilization she decided to leave back at 1975. I wonder how she would have described things differently had she written this book in the current age of social mayhem and climatic chaos assisted by a technological civilization and way of living her book seems to legitimate and praise (the book was published in 2004).
Given these limitations, I've found the book readable and enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning about some of the more unsavory aspects of moving to live close to the land. I'll now be turning to other books who may provide the complementary sides of the story, untold by Angew.
May 11, 2023
This book appealed to me for many reasons. As a fan of nature writers such as Calvin Rutstrum, Helen Hoover, Bernd Heinrich, among others, I was interested in reading about the idealism and realizations experienced by the Back to the Landers. Some of their reasons for leaving the city overlap with the naturalists, but they mostly carried it to a greater extreme because they coupled political beliefs with their desires to be in the woods.
I was glad she quoted often from David Shi’s “The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture”. His book is the definitive work on utopian societies in American history. Spoiler alert: They rarely work.
Last, but not least, I read through this book with the memory of my Mom accompanying me. In the 60s and 70s she was a young married mom who watched all of this and wondered if she could have hit the road if she’d made other choices. We lived on my grandparents’ farm, so she had the rural part, but it’s different when it’s under the eyes of your in-laws. I saw her wrestle with a wringer washer, like the author describes. She loathed butchering day, also described by the author. But it was interesting to hear the thought processes that influenced that time period and to relate it to some of the choices my mom made. She would have loved this book.
I was glad she quoted often from David Shi’s “The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture”. His book is the definitive work on utopian societies in American history. Spoiler alert: They rarely work.
Last, but not least, I read through this book with the memory of my Mom accompanying me. In the 60s and 70s she was a young married mom who watched all of this and wondered if she could have hit the road if she’d made other choices. We lived on my grandparents’ farm, so she had the rural part, but it’s different when it’s under the eyes of your in-laws. I saw her wrestle with a wringer washer, like the author describes. She loathed butchering day, also described by the author. But it was interesting to hear the thought processes that influenced that time period and to relate it to some of the choices my mom made. She would have loved this book.
March 21, 2023
A simple premise, well organized, researched and written. The idealism that led many young Americans in the 1970s to go “back to the land” and live lives of simplicity, what they discovered, and why most of them came back to the mainstream. Gives me at least some different perspective on the boomer generation, and that pull to live “simply”.
July 18, 2021
This is an excellent history/oral history/memoir. It was an enjoyable read that I inhaled in three days. As a reader of Mother Earth News, I immediately related to how easy the skills seem on its pages.
June 4, 2008
"For the most part, massive shifts towards simplicity such as the back-to-the-land movements have had a very short life span. People looking for an overnight conversion are bound to be disappointed and will inevitably backslide to the old way."
I had mixed feelings about this book. It was extremely interesting in subject matter, yet slightly dry in writing. The book describes well, through personal stories from many different people, every aspect of the back to the land movement.
At first thought, before opening this book, I might have dreamed of handing it all over and going to live in nature. I would gladly give up buying consumer goods from our greedy society, and instead grow all of my own food, live off the land, and move off the grid. After reading this book, I would probably not opt for such a radical life change, and instead look to change how I live within society rather than leave it altogether, which is what all of the former back-to-the-landers in this book decided as well.
Overall, an interesting read if you can persevere through it, which I recommend you do.
I had mixed feelings about this book. It was extremely interesting in subject matter, yet slightly dry in writing. The book describes well, through personal stories from many different people, every aspect of the back to the land movement.
At first thought, before opening this book, I might have dreamed of handing it all over and going to live in nature. I would gladly give up buying consumer goods from our greedy society, and instead grow all of my own food, live off the land, and move off the grid. After reading this book, I would probably not opt for such a radical life change, and instead look to change how I live within society rather than leave it altogether, which is what all of the former back-to-the-landers in this book decided as well.
Overall, an interesting read if you can persevere through it, which I recommend you do.
August 5, 2013
Fascinating and so predictable at the same time. While you have to admire gumption, so many of the people who went "back to the land" were shockingly naive. I know it was a different time, and certainly these educated, middle class baby boomers had very sheltered upbringings, but WOW! It wouldn't have been a bad idea to apprentice yourself and learn about farming before quitting your job and packing up the kids to move to a northern clime in January. When building a house, consider insulation. Test the water in the well before buying the land. Read up, consult elders, and make decisions with a clear head. Anyone who thinks farming will allow you to escape the money trap has clearly never farmed. If being poor is romantic, you've never been poor. It difficult not to see these pioneers as misguided teenagers rebelling against their parents and society. They came back because they became adults.
May 7, 2009
I am continually fascinated with the back to the land movement and homesteading. I have absolutely NO desire to pursue this life, but I still find if interesting.
The author of this book left the city and built a small cabin in Main with her husband and two sons. She tells her own story and the story of many other homesteaders and commune dwellers from that era. The primary theme is unmet expectations. Many homesteaders envisioned a life off the grid that involved simple living, harmony with nature, and much more free time since they had escaped the rat race. Instead, they experience extreme weather, ongoing manual labor, poverty, and strains on marriages due to living in such close quarters. The author effectively illustrates the dreams of homesteading their gradual unraveling as reality takes over.
The author of this book left the city and built a small cabin in Main with her husband and two sons. She tells her own story and the story of many other homesteaders and commune dwellers from that era. The primary theme is unmet expectations. Many homesteaders envisioned a life off the grid that involved simple living, harmony with nature, and much more free time since they had escaped the rat race. Instead, they experience extreme weather, ongoing manual labor, poverty, and strains on marriages due to living in such close quarters. The author effectively illustrates the dreams of homesteading their gradual unraveling as reality takes over.
December 2, 2008
This book offers an interesting look into the homesteading movement in the 1970s, which was made popular by Helen and Scott Nearing with their book "Living the Good Life". A lot of young middle-class people in the 1970s were discouraged with modern living and the economy was worse than in the 1960s, and they were being bombarded by new technologies, yet feeling like they didn't know the value of true, meaningful work. This book talks about several accounts of families or couples moving onto farms and living like the pioneers. The last section of the book talks about the struggles and how a lot of back-to-the-landers were in over their heads and ended up living in harsh weather and extreme poverty, isolated from society. She talks about why she went back to mainstream society and how she still incorporates ethics of sustainability into her life while living comfortably.
December 28, 2012
Back from the Land is the pessimistic counter to Radical Homemakers. If you got a lot of cautionary data from This Life is in Your Hands, Back from the Land will be even more useful since the latter profiles several different failed homesteaders rather than sticking to one story.
Granted, reading about why the previous generation gave up on their farms is tough for modern homesteaders. But if you don't learn from the past, we're doomed to repeat it, right?
Granted, reading about why the previous generation gave up on their farms is tough for modern homesteaders. But if you don't learn from the past, we're doomed to repeat it, right?
August 19, 2010
Because they didn't realize how much work it would be and being poor was no fun. That's the answer I already expected - I was hoping for some more analysis and less anecdote. A quick read, interesting enough if, for example, you and everyone you grew up with belonged to this group of people.
June 8, 2012
Anecdotal treatment. Baby boomers look back on their pursuit of an American agrarian utopian ideal, what didn't work, and what aspects of their idealism endure in their more mainstream lives since leaving the land.
July 27, 2013
Moral of the story: homesteading is no fun if you have kids, want dental care, enjoy being warm in the winter, are not in perfect health, do not enjoy brutal manual labor day in and day out in horrible weather, or get stressed out by never having money for necessities.
January 15, 2008
Great account from a former homesteader in maine.
July 24, 2008
Interesting book. I think I probably would have tried this had I been the right age at the time. I probably would have left the land for the same reasons they did.
August 7, 2008
Written by a librarian, this is a good account of the failures and lost hopes of a generation.
November 22, 2008
This was ok. A little dry, a little rough, but interesting enough to finish it.
December 3, 2013
an interesting premise, but every time she brought up a story just to complain about something personal, I wanted to take a nap
March 21, 2009
Dah- Tah! SUPER HIPPIE MEMOIR!
May 6, 2010
I really enjoyed this. I think it's prompted me to read more about homesteaders/commune-dwellers/back-to-the-land folks.
December 20, 2010
Interesting to hear perspectives from all kinds of people in occupations all across the spectrum, that dropped everything to live the natural life.
July 23, 2014
Having lived it, I didn't need to read all the anticdotes, but I enjoyed and agreed with the analysis of the movement
May 15, 2016
An interesting collection of experiences of back to the land people.
January 31, 2017
Excellent book for anyone considering homesteading.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews