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Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind
In a poignant memoir, a young journalist wrestles with what we owe the places we've left behind.
In the tiny farmtown of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead is one who left, and in her debut memoir she examines the heartbreaking consequences of her decision--and those of people like her-for heartland America.
In the tiny farmtown of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead is one who left, and in her debut memoir she examines the heartbreaking consequences of her decision--and those of people like her-for heartland America.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 16, 2021
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May 18, 2021
Several decades ago Robert Nisbet called the problem of rootlessness, of community lost, "the towering moral problem of the age." But despite the problem's crucial importance, it is one that is ignored no less in our day than it was in Nisbet's. Now as then, Americans move to and fro, seeking wealth, importance, and novelty, but rarely looking for home in the broad sense. A penetrating exploration of that problem, and its consequences for both places and the placeless, is badly needed. Unfortunately, Grace Olmstead's Uprooted is not that book.
That's not to say the book is a dud - far from it. Olmstead intersperses family and regional history with modern vignettes and critiques of public policy as she grapples with the question of whether she should return to the small farming community of Emmett, Idaho, where she grew up and which she left a decade ago to attend college in Virginia, where she still lives. All of this makes for mostly interesting reading, though it combines in its execution to create a certain sense of aimlessness that is faintly suggestive of the rootless society Olmstead is critiquing.
Thus, even as she makes many important points about the necessary connections between people and communities, about the importance of stewardship of physical and communal inheritances, and the deleterious effects of market absolutism and doctrines of personal autonomy, she seems to accept modern dogma that tend to militate against all of those things. For instance, Olmstead repeatedly suggests that more diversity is needed for her home state and home town to thrive. But does diversity, the buzziest of modern buzzwords, tend inherently to increase the strength of a community the way she suggests it does? We don't find out, because it is simply put forward as an undefined good to be pursued. This does not, to be sure, suggest a negative in answer to that question - certainly diversity is not instinctively to be opposed for the sake of mere homogeneity. But the fact that community and culture are inextricably linked suggests that there's more to the discussion than is presented for our consideration, and that diversity for its own sake is an equally unsatisfactory presupposition. Richard Weaver wrote that cultures "in most instances...are geographically regional," and that "In proportion as one tries to stretch a culture wide, it gets thin." The question of how a culture, even of a local community, must change or become diverse while still retaining its strengths and particularities is routinely ignored, and Uprooted is unfortunately not much of an exception on this score.
In language that would appeal to Olmstead's agrarian sensibilities, Weaver also observed that "culture is like an organic creation in that its constitution cannot tolerate more than a certain amount of what is foreign or extraneous," by which Weaver meant foreign or extraneous ideas. By the end of Uprooted, the reader begins to wonder if Olmstead's return would bring a foreign influence to her erstwhile home. She admits that her time in Virginia, hobnobbing with the credentialed class, has influenced her political and social views (many of which I share), which she describes as neither Republican nor libertarian (nor, presumably, Progressive). This puts her at odds with the stereotypical Idahoan, and in fact she intimates in the book's closing pages that the stereotypical Idahoan is in some respects her political enemy. She envisions moving back in order to influence the residents of Emmett (Emmettians?) towards more ecologically conservationist and vaguely socially respectable positions.
And, again, while this is not an argument against conservationism or socially respectable positions themselves, one wonders if returning home for the sake of changing it is really to embrace rootedness. Olmstead notes the resentment Idahoans have towards Californians who are increasingly moving into the state and, at least theoretically, importing foreign ideas. But is a native daughter who leaves, acquires those ideas, and comes back to implement them really that much different? Olmstead cautions against viewing places and their history with a sense of nostalgia, a falsely simplistic memory of what has been. But is it much better to view places and their future with a falsely simplistic idea of what could be, particularly given the right influences?
These questions are slightly unfair to Olmstead, because she affirms that her desire in returning home would be to serve the community that built into her life, often without her knowing it, particularly at a time when it is threatened by economic and ecological challenges, suburban sprawl, and an aging population that is not replacing itself in the fields. All these are trends that suggest that the status quo cannot simply be maintained if Emmett, and thousands of other rural communities like it, are going to survive. Such survival is not only going to require that people stay, but will necessitate that others come back, and still others arrive anew. Olmstead is correct that public policy, locally and nationally, has a role to play in these developments, because all the tendencies of our centralized and rootless modern society makes all of this difficult and bewildering to even contemplate.
Indeed, even our author seems bewildered by the choice she feels she will have to eventually make. The book concludes without the reader discovering if or when Olmstead will return home, because she herself still does not know (though she suspects her parents' advancing age will force her hand). And this is a fine illustration of the difficulty that rootedness has to surmount today. The fact that someone with such deep, multigenerational connections to a particular place and a clear desire to send down new roots there can struggle so mightily and publicly to "return home" suggests that even those of us who know that place matters are unready, if not unable, to act that way.
Though Uprooted makes a great many insightful observations, it doesn't ultimately give much guidance on progressing, personally or socially, towards rootedness, other than to say that, wherever we are, we should endeavor to put down roots and build community as best we can. And fine advice though this is, there are questions about the suitability to these efforts of the social soil of our suburbs and cities. Might political and cultural centralization have the same effects on the sustainability of our communities that Olmstead notes monocropping has on farmland? Might some places be more prone to a culture of placelessness than others? Might we need, at some point soon, to intentionally embrace the small, the local, and even the rural?
These questions linger, and await another book.
That's not to say the book is a dud - far from it. Olmstead intersperses family and regional history with modern vignettes and critiques of public policy as she grapples with the question of whether she should return to the small farming community of Emmett, Idaho, where she grew up and which she left a decade ago to attend college in Virginia, where she still lives. All of this makes for mostly interesting reading, though it combines in its execution to create a certain sense of aimlessness that is faintly suggestive of the rootless society Olmstead is critiquing.
Thus, even as she makes many important points about the necessary connections between people and communities, about the importance of stewardship of physical and communal inheritances, and the deleterious effects of market absolutism and doctrines of personal autonomy, she seems to accept modern dogma that tend to militate against all of those things. For instance, Olmstead repeatedly suggests that more diversity is needed for her home state and home town to thrive. But does diversity, the buzziest of modern buzzwords, tend inherently to increase the strength of a community the way she suggests it does? We don't find out, because it is simply put forward as an undefined good to be pursued. This does not, to be sure, suggest a negative in answer to that question - certainly diversity is not instinctively to be opposed for the sake of mere homogeneity. But the fact that community and culture are inextricably linked suggests that there's more to the discussion than is presented for our consideration, and that diversity for its own sake is an equally unsatisfactory presupposition. Richard Weaver wrote that cultures "in most instances...are geographically regional," and that "In proportion as one tries to stretch a culture wide, it gets thin." The question of how a culture, even of a local community, must change or become diverse while still retaining its strengths and particularities is routinely ignored, and Uprooted is unfortunately not much of an exception on this score.
In language that would appeal to Olmstead's agrarian sensibilities, Weaver also observed that "culture is like an organic creation in that its constitution cannot tolerate more than a certain amount of what is foreign or extraneous," by which Weaver meant foreign or extraneous ideas. By the end of Uprooted, the reader begins to wonder if Olmstead's return would bring a foreign influence to her erstwhile home. She admits that her time in Virginia, hobnobbing with the credentialed class, has influenced her political and social views (many of which I share), which she describes as neither Republican nor libertarian (nor, presumably, Progressive). This puts her at odds with the stereotypical Idahoan, and in fact she intimates in the book's closing pages that the stereotypical Idahoan is in some respects her political enemy. She envisions moving back in order to influence the residents of Emmett (Emmettians?) towards more ecologically conservationist and vaguely socially respectable positions.
And, again, while this is not an argument against conservationism or socially respectable positions themselves, one wonders if returning home for the sake of changing it is really to embrace rootedness. Olmstead notes the resentment Idahoans have towards Californians who are increasingly moving into the state and, at least theoretically, importing foreign ideas. But is a native daughter who leaves, acquires those ideas, and comes back to implement them really that much different? Olmstead cautions against viewing places and their history with a sense of nostalgia, a falsely simplistic memory of what has been. But is it much better to view places and their future with a falsely simplistic idea of what could be, particularly given the right influences?
These questions are slightly unfair to Olmstead, because she affirms that her desire in returning home would be to serve the community that built into her life, often without her knowing it, particularly at a time when it is threatened by economic and ecological challenges, suburban sprawl, and an aging population that is not replacing itself in the fields. All these are trends that suggest that the status quo cannot simply be maintained if Emmett, and thousands of other rural communities like it, are going to survive. Such survival is not only going to require that people stay, but will necessitate that others come back, and still others arrive anew. Olmstead is correct that public policy, locally and nationally, has a role to play in these developments, because all the tendencies of our centralized and rootless modern society makes all of this difficult and bewildering to even contemplate.
Indeed, even our author seems bewildered by the choice she feels she will have to eventually make. The book concludes without the reader discovering if or when Olmstead will return home, because she herself still does not know (though she suspects her parents' advancing age will force her hand). And this is a fine illustration of the difficulty that rootedness has to surmount today. The fact that someone with such deep, multigenerational connections to a particular place and a clear desire to send down new roots there can struggle so mightily and publicly to "return home" suggests that even those of us who know that place matters are unready, if not unable, to act that way.
Though Uprooted makes a great many insightful observations, it doesn't ultimately give much guidance on progressing, personally or socially, towards rootedness, other than to say that, wherever we are, we should endeavor to put down roots and build community as best we can. And fine advice though this is, there are questions about the suitability to these efforts of the social soil of our suburbs and cities. Might political and cultural centralization have the same effects on the sustainability of our communities that Olmstead notes monocropping has on farmland? Might some places be more prone to a culture of placelessness than others? Might we need, at some point soon, to intentionally embrace the small, the local, and even the rural?
These questions linger, and await another book.
December 29, 2020
Uprooted is about rural farming communities and the challenges they face. Part-memoir and part-analysis it seeks to uncover what it means to be rooted in a place when our culture values mobility. Through the author, we learn about the history of Emmett and how it has grown and changed with the times. We get a well-written and interesting look into the Treasure Valley through the life of the author's own family and the other families that live and work there today. The book explores the nature of farming in America, the suburbanization of farmland, the boom and bust cycles of a small community, and the importance of connection and community. All the topics are addressed in a conversational and friendly tone and while researched (with footnotes) this is not a socio-economic treatise. It's an easy, thought-provoking, read that I want to share with others so we can talk about it.
In many ways the content of this book struck home. I was the teenager that wanted to get out of their podunk town and travel far away. I was the author, deciding to leave my Idaho valley for "bigger and better" only to find I didn't quite know what I was rejecting. I have friends who are farmers, ranchers, and dairymen that have struggled in recent years and shown me just how much farming is big business. I have watched as fields that I once worked in, hoeing beets as a kid, have been transformed into small subdivisions and seen those paved roads dead-ending into fields. This book captures so perfectly what I see around me in my valley (which is not the Treasure Valley) and it gave me a framework for thinking about the changes. I also loved how it gave me a bit of hope for these communities to find a middle way. Though the book gives no real answers I enjoyed all the questions and ways of thinking about the issues.
Finally, I want to say how much I appreciate this thoughtful and honest approach to Idaho's people and culture. After reading Educated earlier this year I have found myself annoyed that for so many people it has become their default when they think about my home state. I can't wait to recommend this as an alternative to every single person who asks me about Educated.
I was given an early copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I can't wait for it to come out so that I can share it with my book club. It's probably more of a 4-4.5 for me but I want this to be successful so 5 stars all the way.
In many ways the content of this book struck home. I was the teenager that wanted to get out of their podunk town and travel far away. I was the author, deciding to leave my Idaho valley for "bigger and better" only to find I didn't quite know what I was rejecting. I have friends who are farmers, ranchers, and dairymen that have struggled in recent years and shown me just how much farming is big business. I have watched as fields that I once worked in, hoeing beets as a kid, have been transformed into small subdivisions and seen those paved roads dead-ending into fields. This book captures so perfectly what I see around me in my valley (which is not the Treasure Valley) and it gave me a framework for thinking about the changes. I also loved how it gave me a bit of hope for these communities to find a middle way. Though the book gives no real answers I enjoyed all the questions and ways of thinking about the issues.
Finally, I want to say how much I appreciate this thoughtful and honest approach to Idaho's people and culture. After reading Educated earlier this year I have found myself annoyed that for so many people it has become their default when they think about my home state. I can't wait to recommend this as an alternative to every single person who asks me about Educated.
I was given an early copy of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I can't wait for it to come out so that I can share it with my book club. It's probably more of a 4-4.5 for me but I want this to be successful so 5 stars all the way.
December 29, 2020
This debut seeks to give us an inside look into Emmett Idaho (the author's hometown) and what happens when people choose to leave or stay in a small farming community.
I was under the impression this would be a bit more of a memoir (a la J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy) about a young woman grappling with her roots and a sense of connection or disconnection from the town she left behind for "greener pastures."
The topic of leaving one's hometown and community roots is a particularly poignant one as our entire millennial generation is extremely mobile across America compared to previous generations. I started out pretty excited about this one when she went to her old high school and asked students if they planned to stay and farm. But, her points about transience and brain drain didn't appear to be the main anecdote of the book which left me disappointed because that's what I was expecting and hoping to read.
I noted in the first few chapters that her writing style is fluid and easy to follow, but as the book progressed I found the text highly repetitive and over-wordy. I could probably pinpoint several locations where the same idea was repeated over, and over, and over again.
I think Olmstead tries to cover too much ground and this leaves the book feeling rootless. (See what I did there?) The points she makes are valid but there is almost so much happening in this book that different truths feel like outright contradictions. For example, she states many Americans have transience thrust upon them. Then the next sentence or paragraph she would say that Americans are far less mobile than they used to be. While these things may be inherently true, there is so much going on in the text that it had me questioning what the overall point was supposed to be.
Olmstead seems to almost question why the young are leaving town but then spends the rest of the book explaining about how nearly impossible it is for farmers to make it in our modern Big Ag/corporation-dominant economy. So... if people want to thrive and feel as though they can't accomplish this in their hometown why would anyone stay? Additionally, it comes across as slightly condescending to make the point that sometimes staying and growing roots is more beneficial than moving and achieving higher success/more money/etc. because that is exactly what the author herself has done in moving to Virginia.
Overall, not a bad book, but I feel like my strongest take away was that younger generations are leaving small farming communities for better opportunities, inevitably leaving a hole that can't be filled for those left behind.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was under the impression this would be a bit more of a memoir (a la J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy) about a young woman grappling with her roots and a sense of connection or disconnection from the town she left behind for "greener pastures."
The topic of leaving one's hometown and community roots is a particularly poignant one as our entire millennial generation is extremely mobile across America compared to previous generations. I started out pretty excited about this one when she went to her old high school and asked students if they planned to stay and farm. But, her points about transience and brain drain didn't appear to be the main anecdote of the book which left me disappointed because that's what I was expecting and hoping to read.
I noted in the first few chapters that her writing style is fluid and easy to follow, but as the book progressed I found the text highly repetitive and over-wordy. I could probably pinpoint several locations where the same idea was repeated over, and over, and over again.
I think Olmstead tries to cover too much ground and this leaves the book feeling rootless. (See what I did there?) The points she makes are valid but there is almost so much happening in this book that different truths feel like outright contradictions. For example, she states many Americans have transience thrust upon them. Then the next sentence or paragraph she would say that Americans are far less mobile than they used to be. While these things may be inherently true, there is so much going on in the text that it had me questioning what the overall point was supposed to be.
Olmstead seems to almost question why the young are leaving town but then spends the rest of the book explaining about how nearly impossible it is for farmers to make it in our modern Big Ag/corporation-dominant economy. So... if people want to thrive and feel as though they can't accomplish this in their hometown why would anyone stay? Additionally, it comes across as slightly condescending to make the point that sometimes staying and growing roots is more beneficial than moving and achieving higher success/more money/etc. because that is exactly what the author herself has done in moving to Virginia.
Overall, not a bad book, but I feel like my strongest take away was that younger generations are leaving small farming communities for better opportunities, inevitably leaving a hole that can't be filled for those left behind.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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March 22, 2021UPDATE: My interview with Grace at Mere Orthodoxy: https://mereorthodoxy.com/becoming-pe...
Here's an excerpt from Jeff Bilbro's review:
I mentioned that Uprooted is not just the history of Emmett, and it’s not just a sociological and economic consideration of the plight of rural farming communities; it’s also a memoir of a young woman who left Emmett to go off to college and now lives with her family in Virginia. Olmstead confronts the irony of her situation with unflinching honesty. When she left as a teenager, she didn’t reckon with how her departure might damage her place: “I was completely oblivious to my role in that decay and loss. Although I ached for what I had left behind, turning the memories over and over in my mind, I didn’t even consider the fact that I was one of the kids that had blown away.” Now, however, she is keenly aware of the costs that come with uprooting, even as she remains grateful for what she has learned, who she has come to know, and where she lives: “I often feel like I don’t belong in Idaho or in Virginia: both defined by my roots and remade by my present reality.” Olmstead notes that being stretched between these two places “has, in many ways, been good for me. I can see the ways it has deepened and complicated my vision, given me new understanding, insight, and, hopefully, empathy. But I do feel worn out, sometimes, going back and forth.”
Lawrence Buell has suggested that in a contemporary, mobile society, many people experience “place-attachment” in ways that are “more like an archipelago than concentric circles.” This seems to describe Olmstead’s experience, as her responsibilities and sense of belonging are split between places situated across the country. Like Olmstead, I am the only member of my family who has left the area where I was raised. And like her I have experienced the paradoxical effects of this uprooting. As she puts it, “I am the only one who really, truly left. And perhaps because of that, I think I am the only one who constantly looks back toward Emmett, toward the generations of family past who built something in its soil. Living in Virginia showed me my roots.” She never settles the question of if or when she and her family might move home. They have many roots in Virginia now, with the accompanying obligations to its soil and community. Olmstead wonders if her life might follow a similar trajectory to that of her Grandma Mom, who was a transplant to Emmett and became a great blessing to that place: “Everywhere she lived, she chose to be a perennial. Surely, those of use who’ve moved away from our homelands can aspire to that same grace and passion.” This is my hope as well: there is still much good that transplants can do, and some things they can, in fact, see more clearly about both the places they’ve left and the places in which they’ve put down roots. Olmstead does an admirable job of naming the unique goods available both to those who bloom where they were born and to those who bloom where they have been transplanted.
Olmstead describes the process of writing this book as “an exercise in discernment” regarding whether or not she and her family should return to Emmett. Discerning one’s responsibilities and calling regarding place is a difficult task, and Olmstead articulates the questions that should be at the heart of this process: “There are many reasons … to leave a place—even a place we love. But why we leave and what we cultivate once we’ve moved to new ground are important questions to consider.” If she does return home, it won’t be with a simplistic, nostalgic view of Emmett. Rather, “it will be a conscious choice of love, made to a people and a place that are messy, complicated, broken—and precious beyond imagining.”
Uprooted should be a provocation and an example for readers to reconsider their own relationship to their place: What is the history of your place? What is the history of its soil? How has your life either enriched or impoverished the places from which it has drawn sustenance? Olmstead serves as a compassionate and discerning guide through this thicket of questions, and her admonition near the conclusion of the book applies to all of us, the recent transplants and the long-rooted alike: “Wherever we decide to live, we must learn to stick: choosing to invest ourselves in place, to love our neighbors, to leave our soil a little healthier than it was when we arrived. Every place will be imperfect. But love suggests that we ought to keep trying anyway: to keep sowing seeds of service and generosity in the lands we love.” The soil in our accustomed earth may indeed be worn-out, but that does not negate our responsibility to do what we can to tend its health.
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/20...
Here's an excerpt from Jeff Bilbro's review:
I mentioned that Uprooted is not just the history of Emmett, and it’s not just a sociological and economic consideration of the plight of rural farming communities; it’s also a memoir of a young woman who left Emmett to go off to college and now lives with her family in Virginia. Olmstead confronts the irony of her situation with unflinching honesty. When she left as a teenager, she didn’t reckon with how her departure might damage her place: “I was completely oblivious to my role in that decay and loss. Although I ached for what I had left behind, turning the memories over and over in my mind, I didn’t even consider the fact that I was one of the kids that had blown away.” Now, however, she is keenly aware of the costs that come with uprooting, even as she remains grateful for what she has learned, who she has come to know, and where she lives: “I often feel like I don’t belong in Idaho or in Virginia: both defined by my roots and remade by my present reality.” Olmstead notes that being stretched between these two places “has, in many ways, been good for me. I can see the ways it has deepened and complicated my vision, given me new understanding, insight, and, hopefully, empathy. But I do feel worn out, sometimes, going back and forth.”
Lawrence Buell has suggested that in a contemporary, mobile society, many people experience “place-attachment” in ways that are “more like an archipelago than concentric circles.” This seems to describe Olmstead’s experience, as her responsibilities and sense of belonging are split between places situated across the country. Like Olmstead, I am the only member of my family who has left the area where I was raised. And like her I have experienced the paradoxical effects of this uprooting. As she puts it, “I am the only one who really, truly left. And perhaps because of that, I think I am the only one who constantly looks back toward Emmett, toward the generations of family past who built something in its soil. Living in Virginia showed me my roots.” She never settles the question of if or when she and her family might move home. They have many roots in Virginia now, with the accompanying obligations to its soil and community. Olmstead wonders if her life might follow a similar trajectory to that of her Grandma Mom, who was a transplant to Emmett and became a great blessing to that place: “Everywhere she lived, she chose to be a perennial. Surely, those of use who’ve moved away from our homelands can aspire to that same grace and passion.” This is my hope as well: there is still much good that transplants can do, and some things they can, in fact, see more clearly about both the places they’ve left and the places in which they’ve put down roots. Olmstead does an admirable job of naming the unique goods available both to those who bloom where they were born and to those who bloom where they have been transplanted.
Olmstead describes the process of writing this book as “an exercise in discernment” regarding whether or not she and her family should return to Emmett. Discerning one’s responsibilities and calling regarding place is a difficult task, and Olmstead articulates the questions that should be at the heart of this process: “There are many reasons … to leave a place—even a place we love. But why we leave and what we cultivate once we’ve moved to new ground are important questions to consider.” If she does return home, it won’t be with a simplistic, nostalgic view of Emmett. Rather, “it will be a conscious choice of love, made to a people and a place that are messy, complicated, broken—and precious beyond imagining.”
Uprooted should be a provocation and an example for readers to reconsider their own relationship to their place: What is the history of your place? What is the history of its soil? How has your life either enriched or impoverished the places from which it has drawn sustenance? Olmstead serves as a compassionate and discerning guide through this thicket of questions, and her admonition near the conclusion of the book applies to all of us, the recent transplants and the long-rooted alike: “Wherever we decide to live, we must learn to stick: choosing to invest ourselves in place, to love our neighbors, to leave our soil a little healthier than it was when we arrived. Every place will be imperfect. But love suggests that we ought to keep trying anyway: to keep sowing seeds of service and generosity in the lands we love.” The soil in our accustomed earth may indeed be worn-out, but that does not negate our responsibility to do what we can to tend its health.
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/20...
March 6, 2024
Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind
is Grace Olmstead's encouragement (truly a veiled plea) to readers of her book to ponder the footsteps and decisions of their own past generations, especially ancestors who chose to stick, and how and why.
Written in the form of a memoir, the author shares heartfelt considerations of her own ancestral families settling in the Payette Valley of Idaho in the 1880's. She skillfully draws them, their parts and members, and dresses them fully in their agrarian goals - grains and fruit are stars in this part of the world - and grounds all in the virtues they held: benevolence, service to others and self-reliance. She works her way through the years chronologically and arrives at her own front door. She considers her own leaving of the homeplace to an opposite shore, always looking back over her shoulder at what was left behind, and to where she ultimately believes she will return. From here the book and read becomes even more compelling.
Questions are posed about the effect of her family and her life (whisper suggesting you consider the lives of you and your own family on wherever you find yourself with this read in hand) on the land they have "cultivated" (meaning from which they've removed value however that is defined). At its most basic level: who and how many persons in the past had to die in order for the land to be procured? How was that justified (and now did the benevolence or equity weigh in)? On other levels how did it play out over time in resources used and bettered or used and depleted? How did it work out in generations sticking (staying in the community built), or loss of cultural capital to other more attractive urban areas? The author asks deep and abiding questions that are relevant to every acre in the world that finds human feet planted - she begs a reader to take a longer look and consider if they really know everything they think they do.
In the two generations that have occurred since my birth in the 50's, there has been a complete turning upside down of history, the roles of the players, and a change of that two-faced mask worn. Manifest Destiny becomes a death sentence for whole nations, pioneers, pilgrims and explorers are no longer honored but are vilified and all motives for migration translate to declarations of war. While all the defensive hackles rise, it is well worth the exercise to take a deep breath, pet them down and soberly reckon on all "history" doesn't reconcile. Ponder and consider changing the frames we keep around what we know, and readjust as realizations squeeze in. This invitation is important and timely, and is the pressing question this author leaves with the reader.
A worthy read and one I'll take with me as I walk, move and contemplate in the spaces I call home, where my ancestors called home, and those roads my children and their children have yet to travel.
*A sincere thank you to Grace Olmstead, Penguin Group Sentinel, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.* #Uprooted #NetGalley
Written in the form of a memoir, the author shares heartfelt considerations of her own ancestral families settling in the Payette Valley of Idaho in the 1880's. She skillfully draws them, their parts and members, and dresses them fully in their agrarian goals - grains and fruit are stars in this part of the world - and grounds all in the virtues they held: benevolence, service to others and self-reliance. She works her way through the years chronologically and arrives at her own front door. She considers her own leaving of the homeplace to an opposite shore, always looking back over her shoulder at what was left behind, and to where she ultimately believes she will return. From here the book and read becomes even more compelling.
Questions are posed about the effect of her family and her life (whisper suggesting you consider the lives of you and your own family on wherever you find yourself with this read in hand) on the land they have "cultivated" (meaning from which they've removed value however that is defined). At its most basic level: who and how many persons in the past had to die in order for the land to be procured? How was that justified (and now did the benevolence or equity weigh in)? On other levels how did it play out over time in resources used and bettered or used and depleted? How did it work out in generations sticking (staying in the community built), or loss of cultural capital to other more attractive urban areas? The author asks deep and abiding questions that are relevant to every acre in the world that finds human feet planted - she begs a reader to take a longer look and consider if they really know everything they think they do.
In the two generations that have occurred since my birth in the 50's, there has been a complete turning upside down of history, the roles of the players, and a change of that two-faced mask worn. Manifest Destiny becomes a death sentence for whole nations, pioneers, pilgrims and explorers are no longer honored but are vilified and all motives for migration translate to declarations of war. While all the defensive hackles rise, it is well worth the exercise to take a deep breath, pet them down and soberly reckon on all "history" doesn't reconcile. Ponder and consider changing the frames we keep around what we know, and readjust as realizations squeeze in. This invitation is important and timely, and is the pressing question this author leaves with the reader.
A worthy read and one I'll take with me as I walk, move and contemplate in the spaces I call home, where my ancestors called home, and those roads my children and their children have yet to travel.
*A sincere thank you to Grace Olmstead, Penguin Group Sentinel, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.* #Uprooted #NetGalley
December 22, 2022
I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars. I've read a bit of Olmstead's writing in the past and had high expectations of this book. I was especially excited because the book is about a place I know at least a little. Her very personal knowledge of the history of Emmett combined with the interviews with local farmers provide a lot of context for the questions she wants to ask. Unfortunately throughout the book I found myself wondering if she was even listening to herself or learning anything from her own research and writing. She mentions a lot of her beliefs, such as that Idaho needs to have some kind of reckoning with its past racial intolerance, but when she brings them up, they're rarely motivated by anything she sees, hears, or experiences while in Idaho. When she brings these things up, it's more like she wants to remind us that she's not really like other Idahoans than like it has anything to do with the causes or symptoms of what she's actually seeing in a small farming town's demise. I didn't expect someone who both was a local and is, in this very book, correctly identifying many of Emmett's problems with ag consolidation and so forth to still think by the end of the book that she could take her educated urban ideas back to the small town and fix it by, like, being kind to people and fighting racism. I'm being a little unfair but rootedness and the relationship between a place and its culture, which she speaks about very well in the book, is not the same thing as generic kindnesses you can do for your neighbors anywhere (not that it's ever a bad thing to do those! Please do!). There's just some disconnect here and I suspect it's because she can see very clearly what the problems are but, like most people, has no idea how you'd fix them or how she'd go back or become rooted or what she'd do for work (like everyone she can't imagine moving there without some good jobs for her and her husband already lined up). So it ends up very frustrating.
September 24, 2021
Grace Olmstead's "Uprooted" draws readers' eyes back to the places forgotten and abandoned in the United States. Seldom do I read a non-fiction as quickly as this; my guess as to why is the beauty of the prose.
Yes, I have some disagreements about areas the author focuses on (for example, semantics around the word "exploitation"), but the conclusions she presents are at least well-thought-out. Overall, she asks more honest questions than she tries to lay out her own opinions.
I especially enjoyed how she weaved her family's history in the Treasure Valley into a modern commentary on rural living, farming, and community. Though I'm personally a generation removed from my ancestors' roots, I still feel the conflict the author presents.
Though I wasn't encumbered by rote statistics, I definitely learned a lot: about the importance of soil maintenance, mono-culture takeover, and the decimation of small agricultural enterprise since the 1970's. One trope she shines a new light on is the idea of the independent farmer. Yes, in some ways they pioneered and blazed trails, but not without their family, friends, and churches. As American as independence sounds, we still need one another. Grace Olmstead makes a strong argument for helping those close to you.
For anyone interested in community, family farming, and the idea of being rooted, I urge you to read "Uprooted"; you'll enjoy it!
Yes, I have some disagreements about areas the author focuses on (for example, semantics around the word "exploitation"), but the conclusions she presents are at least well-thought-out. Overall, she asks more honest questions than she tries to lay out her own opinions.
I especially enjoyed how she weaved her family's history in the Treasure Valley into a modern commentary on rural living, farming, and community. Though I'm personally a generation removed from my ancestors' roots, I still feel the conflict the author presents.
Though I wasn't encumbered by rote statistics, I definitely learned a lot: about the importance of soil maintenance, mono-culture takeover, and the decimation of small agricultural enterprise since the 1970's. One trope she shines a new light on is the idea of the independent farmer. Yes, in some ways they pioneered and blazed trails, but not without their family, friends, and churches. As American as independence sounds, we still need one another. Grace Olmstead makes a strong argument for helping those close to you.
For anyone interested in community, family farming, and the idea of being rooted, I urge you to read "Uprooted"; you'll enjoy it!
April 10, 2021
Agreed with many of the diagnoses, probably disagree with most of the solutions.
Interesting to read about another person thinking of sticking or going.
Interesting to read about another person thinking of sticking or going.
February 4, 2021
Grace Olmstead's first book is by no means a perfect book; there were multiple points as I read through this advance copy where I found myself dissatisfied with her narrative choices, with the arguments she did or didn't make, with the information she thought important to this pseudo-memoir, and thus all the information she left out. But that unevenness in the end paled in significance; the book won me over with its earnestness and light. I called it a pseudo-memoir, and that's not entirely inaccurate; much of the books really is the story of her family's history in Emmett, Idaho, a small farming down about 30 miles from Boise. But the story she tells is really best expressed as, in her own terms, "an exercise in discernment." This book is Olmstead using her family's story--though really it is her great-grandfather's story, more than anyone else's--to examine a particular place, a place that she has come to love greatly ever since she left it, and to examine her relationship to that place, a place that has, in many ways, objectively declined in exactly the way so many other small rural places have declined. There is a fair amount of public policy in the book; Olmstead is providing any new research here, but if someone who picked up this book knew nothing about urban growth patterns, soil depletion, contemporary agribusinesses practices, farming politics and economics, and seed crops, they'd receive a thoughtful, if not entirely thorough education.
That last comment of mine reflects my honest judgment of this book: that perhaps I like it more than it deserves. It is a truly good book; Olmstead is a fine writer, and many of her examples--drawn from much local research in Emmett, as well as dozens of interviews over years of time--make her points of about the value of small towns, or the pathologies of individualism, or the deep influence of the neighborly arts, extremely well, sometimes beautifully. But there is a stitched together quality to the book, and I wanted something more critical, or more introspective (so little of the book is actually about her or her immediate family, as opposed to her extended one, and that's a serious lack, I think), or even more polemical, to give it a stronger narrative coherence. Even so, in the final chapters of the book, I became completely sold. Her lyrical invocation of a lost farming life made me reflect on the farming life which my own family had lost, and her insistence that the fruits of the sort of rooted life which farming once provided echoes through the generations nonetheless reminded me so many blessings I associate with an agrarian lifestyle which was never honestly my own or my family's...yet which shaped me nonetheless. So for reminding me of--helping me discern!--such things, I can only say: read this book. I mean, read Wendell Berry first, because the way he communicates the same truths is essential to any kind of local, agrarian discernment. But read this fine book to, and maybe you'll be moved by the discoveries about her beloved hometown and herself that she shares too.
That last comment of mine reflects my honest judgment of this book: that perhaps I like it more than it deserves. It is a truly good book; Olmstead is a fine writer, and many of her examples--drawn from much local research in Emmett, as well as dozens of interviews over years of time--make her points of about the value of small towns, or the pathologies of individualism, or the deep influence of the neighborly arts, extremely well, sometimes beautifully. But there is a stitched together quality to the book, and I wanted something more critical, or more introspective (so little of the book is actually about her or her immediate family, as opposed to her extended one, and that's a serious lack, I think), or even more polemical, to give it a stronger narrative coherence. Even so, in the final chapters of the book, I became completely sold. Her lyrical invocation of a lost farming life made me reflect on the farming life which my own family had lost, and her insistence that the fruits of the sort of rooted life which farming once provided echoes through the generations nonetheless reminded me so many blessings I associate with an agrarian lifestyle which was never honestly my own or my family's...yet which shaped me nonetheless. So for reminding me of--helping me discern!--such things, I can only say: read this book. I mean, read Wendell Berry first, because the way he communicates the same truths is essential to any kind of local, agrarian discernment. But read this fine book to, and maybe you'll be moved by the discoveries about her beloved hometown and herself that she shares too.
October 15, 2021
I did not like this book at all, and honestly am surprised it has such a high rating on Goodreads. It was very unfocused throughout and included way too much naval-gazing and existential angst for reasons which were never clear to me.
The general theme of nostalgia for a time and place one has left behind is surely a relatable one. However, I found the author’s writing style, personality, and need to over-analyze every little detail of her past highly un-relatable.
No significant insights were yielded 220 pages later and I finished the book feeling like I had wasted my time reading it.
The information on Idaho’s history and the author’s extended family saga was admittedly fairly interesting but the book as a whole could have been condensed into about 50 pages. The seemingly endless pages of existential angst would be better suited for a personal journal or therapy session.
The general theme of nostalgia for a time and place one has left behind is surely a relatable one. However, I found the author’s writing style, personality, and need to over-analyze every little detail of her past highly un-relatable.
No significant insights were yielded 220 pages later and I finished the book feeling like I had wasted my time reading it.
The information on Idaho’s history and the author’s extended family saga was admittedly fairly interesting but the book as a whole could have been condensed into about 50 pages. The seemingly endless pages of existential angst would be better suited for a personal journal or therapy session.
January 31, 2022
I am transplanted from the suburbs of Chicago to a small town in rural eastern Oregon. I live less than 150 miles from Emmett, Idaho, the subject of Grace Olmstead's book Uprooted. Both my husband and I have a grandpa who farmed the land. I never met my Grandpa Stover, who died before I was born. Curt adored his Grandpa Bakker who died in his eighties, with a toothpick in his mouth, next to his tractor. Uncle Gordon carried on the tradition in the Yakima Valley, but has since retired. Farming, as a way of life, has disappeared from our families.
This is my context of reading this absorbing book. I'm going to ponder and arrange my thoughts and be back in a few days with them.
This is my context of reading this absorbing book. I'm going to ponder and arrange my thoughts and be back in a few days with them.
April 7, 2021
By turns a nostalgic yearning for a childhood vision of home and an adult reckoning with how it really was/is. I wholeheartedly agree with the author's worries for the loss of independent farms vs Big Ag and imported food, I think we are foolish to keep building over our farm land. I can also recognize that the stagnation and more close mindedness of small towns are a definite barrier to their success in the future. In order for rural areas to thrive, there must be an acceptance that the old ways of the society mindset being in lockstep must be abandoned.
April 23, 2021
While well-written and achingly beautiful at times, Ms Olmstead fails to overcome the main obstacle to her premise. I hesitate to include information that would “spoil” the journey for some readers, so it’s difficult to offer my critique except to say after several well-made points, compelling statistics, and heart-warming anecdotes her conclusions left me somewhat at a loss. In the end, she comes across as someone who has read a lot of Wendell Berry and finds his themes inspiring, but has nothing to add to them except “I used to be from a place like that.”
March 24, 2021
I found “Uprooted” so politically biased it’s hard to take seriously. A missed opportunity on an interesting topic - but left many questions unasked and allowed political lenses to shape the nature of the solutions and ideas offered. I felt disappointed, rather than inspired. That said, i appreciated her writing style, her thoroughness of subject matter, and passion for the topic area.
July 19, 2022
I felt a rare, deep connection with "Uprooted" as a Kansan who moved out to the East Coast. I'm not from a small town like Grace Olmstead's homoetown of Emmett, Idaho but there were some interesting parallels between Olmstead's subject and my hometown Wichita. The brain drain she chronicles is a real phenomenon even in larger cities in "Flyover Country". Many of my friends (and me) left town for the coasts or for larger cities like Chicago. I never thought I'd miss Wichita, but here I am, missing it all the time. Home has a powerful grasp on us, and I love to see authors grapple with that complicated mix of emotions. Reading such an eloquent reflection on what it means to leave home and contemplate a possible return really made me think about my own journey, and that of my family. Of course, it's a cherry on top when the author talks about a Portuguese-American family not unlike my own (see her chapter about the Lourenço family in Emmett). In evocative prose, Olmstead addresses an impressive amount of subject matter in just over 200 pages.
Olmstead's memoir is a family story but also a narrative about the challenges facing rural America. She addresses all sorts of problems, from the aforementioned brain drain to the degradation of soil to corporate consolidation in agriculture to the collapse of local food economies. Building on agrarian authors like Wallace Stegner (whose idea of boomers and stickers really drives the book) and Wendell Berry, Olmstead weaves her family's story and her town's story more broadly into this story about American agriculture. I found Olmstead's insights on how to build roots in a place especially valuable. For any number of reasons, people may not be able to stay where they call home. She provides them with ways to make improve wherever they land. We all have the chance to become the "stickers who have stayed and give back to the soil." I realized while reading how this has always mind, but rarely put to words--upon moving to Philadelphia, I began to help as a volunteer on an urban farm. Indeed, I spend my Tuesday mornings building soil metaphorically and literally, and see firsthand the value of what Olmstead proposes.
On the other hand, as Olmstead discusses, people may be stuck in a place they don't wish to remain. Poverty is a plague in America, and it's only getting worse in parts of the country left behind by political and business leaders. We have a duty to help places like Emmett, or at least stem the worst of the bleeding. Similarly, Olmstead isn't afraid to acknowledge the racism in America's past and present. I appreciate this analysis because other localist authors don't always address these tough issues head-on.
"Uprooted" is both radical and yet deeply conservative, both a wide-angle panorama view and a close-up portrait. There's something dispositionally conservative in mourning the decline of America's tight-knit small towns. Yet simultaneously, Olmstead calls on us to battle societal sicknesses like atomization and inequality by deepening our roots wherever we are, a radical call in a time obsessed with instant gratification and mobility. The current moment, in her words, calls for "a revaluing of the soil, of all the life that depends on it, of the farmers who cultivate and steward it."
Olmstead's memoir is a family story but also a narrative about the challenges facing rural America. She addresses all sorts of problems, from the aforementioned brain drain to the degradation of soil to corporate consolidation in agriculture to the collapse of local food economies. Building on agrarian authors like Wallace Stegner (whose idea of boomers and stickers really drives the book) and Wendell Berry, Olmstead weaves her family's story and her town's story more broadly into this story about American agriculture. I found Olmstead's insights on how to build roots in a place especially valuable. For any number of reasons, people may not be able to stay where they call home. She provides them with ways to make improve wherever they land. We all have the chance to become the "stickers who have stayed and give back to the soil." I realized while reading how this has always mind, but rarely put to words--upon moving to Philadelphia, I began to help as a volunteer on an urban farm. Indeed, I spend my Tuesday mornings building soil metaphorically and literally, and see firsthand the value of what Olmstead proposes.
On the other hand, as Olmstead discusses, people may be stuck in a place they don't wish to remain. Poverty is a plague in America, and it's only getting worse in parts of the country left behind by political and business leaders. We have a duty to help places like Emmett, or at least stem the worst of the bleeding. Similarly, Olmstead isn't afraid to acknowledge the racism in America's past and present. I appreciate this analysis because other localist authors don't always address these tough issues head-on.
"Uprooted" is both radical and yet deeply conservative, both a wide-angle panorama view and a close-up portrait. There's something dispositionally conservative in mourning the decline of America's tight-knit small towns. Yet simultaneously, Olmstead calls on us to battle societal sicknesses like atomization and inequality by deepening our roots wherever we are, a radical call in a time obsessed with instant gratification and mobility. The current moment, in her words, calls for "a revaluing of the soil, of all the life that depends on it, of the farmers who cultivate and steward it."
November 12, 2025
Olmstead writes primarily from an agricultural perspective on the decline of the local farm and community. This was insight an engaging, though her solutions are idealistic at best (unrealistic at worst).
However, reading this as a pastor invoked vastly different feelings. If you replace the word “farm” with “church,” this book helps paint a vision for the role of the church within the larger community. It illustrates many of the challenges facing rural churches - population decline, urbanization, “brain drain,” and the side effects of our modern transient culture. However, it does provide a path forward. First, she frequently eludes to the importance of storytelling as means of cultural transmission between generations. This obviously involves the gospel and our confessional heritage, but it must include stories of the church and community at large. This roots younger generations within the larger narrative of the local congregation. Secondly, she discusses “land succession” in a way analogous to fostering future ministers from within the covenant family. This forces us to ask how we encourage, equip, and employ young men from our church and community in our church and community. Third, the church, like the farm, is part of a larger ecosystem. At some level, the church as a body must begin to think about fostering community sustainability. Some of this may be the investment of capital, the starting of apprenticeships, and the forming of new businesses by members of the local church. This requires the church as a body to invest in the community as a whole.
A cursory reading of this review will note that this requires more than a sermon series. Rather, it requires creating a culture over the span of many years. It requires a pastor to be rooted in one church and community for many, many years.
However, reading this as a pastor invoked vastly different feelings. If you replace the word “farm” with “church,” this book helps paint a vision for the role of the church within the larger community. It illustrates many of the challenges facing rural churches - population decline, urbanization, “brain drain,” and the side effects of our modern transient culture. However, it does provide a path forward. First, she frequently eludes to the importance of storytelling as means of cultural transmission between generations. This obviously involves the gospel and our confessional heritage, but it must include stories of the church and community at large. This roots younger generations within the larger narrative of the local congregation. Secondly, she discusses “land succession” in a way analogous to fostering future ministers from within the covenant family. This forces us to ask how we encourage, equip, and employ young men from our church and community in our church and community. Third, the church, like the farm, is part of a larger ecosystem. At some level, the church as a body must begin to think about fostering community sustainability. Some of this may be the investment of capital, the starting of apprenticeships, and the forming of new businesses by members of the local church. This requires the church as a body to invest in the community as a whole.
A cursory reading of this review will note that this requires more than a sermon series. Rather, it requires creating a culture over the span of many years. It requires a pastor to be rooted in one church and community for many, many years.
January 17, 2024
As an Iowan who is rooted to her community, not necessarily by choice but by circumstance, Uprooted spoke to my soul. This is such a niche book for me. Grace Olmstead left her hometown of Emmett, Idaho for DC and Virginia during college. This book is part memoir and part sociological examination of why people leave our rural communities, the challenges imposed on our rural communities by this exodus, and what we can do to get people to stay. While exploring these topics, Olmstead also reflects on why she left, and whether she would return to Idaho.
This book holds a special place in my heart as an Iowan. I'm extremely politically involved, and interested in the commodification of our agricultural processes through an environmental lense. Olmstead leaves no stone unturned, touching on policy impacts, climate change, agribusiness becoming a monopoly, and even a bit of manifest destiny/depletion of our resources. So much of what is discussed in this book is so relevant to myself and my community. I thought of so many farming communities and family members that I know and as someone who is a part of a family with a Century Farm, watching the legacy of that land is especially impactful following reading this novel.
I would love to move from my hometown, and hope to do so someday, but I have very real and valid reasons for staying here for now. This book really helped me explore my heart and my why for now and provided reassurance in our current situation. Highly recommend.
This book holds a special place in my heart as an Iowan. I'm extremely politically involved, and interested in the commodification of our agricultural processes through an environmental lense. Olmstead leaves no stone unturned, touching on policy impacts, climate change, agribusiness becoming a monopoly, and even a bit of manifest destiny/depletion of our resources. So much of what is discussed in this book is so relevant to myself and my community. I thought of so many farming communities and family members that I know and as someone who is a part of a family with a Century Farm, watching the legacy of that land is especially impactful following reading this novel.
I would love to move from my hometown, and hope to do so someday, but I have very real and valid reasons for staying here for now. This book really helped me explore my heart and my why for now and provided reassurance in our current situation. Highly recommend.
October 11, 2022
Anyone who cares about the future of rural Idaho (or rural anywhere, really) will find this book thought-provoking.
I picked up this book expecting an ode to Emmett, Idaho. My mom grew up in Emmett, and we drove there from Oregon every summer as a kid to visit my grandma in her tiny house sandwiched between a trailer park and a cow pasture. I was surprised to learn someone had written a book about the little town. A little town that I wasn't much impressed with in the 70s and 80s.
Olmstead does cover the history of Emmett and Gem County. But it's not a history book per se. It's more about the concept of rural place and the unique pressures on rural places in the 21st century. By focusing on one small town, she's able to show readers what Emmett's trajectory has in common with rural America everywhere.
Along the way we meet current and past residents of the town, including a number of small-scale farmers. I hope these small farmers survive and thrive. I especially liked Olmstead's conversations with Emmett's most famous native son: current Idaho governor Brad Little. He's the polar opposite of a small-scale farmer, but is a direct link to Emmett's heyday.
When my mom left Emmett for college she never looked back. I chose to move to Idaho as an adult, but to the suburbs of Boise. Moving to one of Idaho's small towns wasn't a consideration. That's too bad. Reading this book will show you why.
I picked up this book expecting an ode to Emmett, Idaho. My mom grew up in Emmett, and we drove there from Oregon every summer as a kid to visit my grandma in her tiny house sandwiched between a trailer park and a cow pasture. I was surprised to learn someone had written a book about the little town. A little town that I wasn't much impressed with in the 70s and 80s.
Olmstead does cover the history of Emmett and Gem County. But it's not a history book per se. It's more about the concept of rural place and the unique pressures on rural places in the 21st century. By focusing on one small town, she's able to show readers what Emmett's trajectory has in common with rural America everywhere.
Along the way we meet current and past residents of the town, including a number of small-scale farmers. I hope these small farmers survive and thrive. I especially liked Olmstead's conversations with Emmett's most famous native son: current Idaho governor Brad Little. He's the polar opposite of a small-scale farmer, but is a direct link to Emmett's heyday.
When my mom left Emmett for college she never looked back. I chose to move to Idaho as an adult, but to the suburbs of Boise. Moving to one of Idaho's small towns wasn't a consideration. That's too bad. Reading this book will show you why.
September 27, 2021
This book was a balm to my soul during this season of my life. Grace explores questions of home and heritage and our duty to those we love in such poignant ways, all while discussing agriculture policy, which is a niche area of study I love. Her hometown is very different from mine, but so many truths about what it means to leave or stay are the same. Been talking about this book for weeks to anyone who will listen.
September 18, 2022
I was searching the library’s online catalogue for a different book, also titled “Uprooted,” when I came across this title. As someone who has left a similar area for work and opportunity, I was drawn to this book.
First, as a kindred soul I found this book spoke to me. There was a lot of wanting better for our hometown and neighbors, “you can’t go home again,” and that deep feeling of trying to find your place that comes through in her writing. The interviews she did were written well.
I was interested in the science and policy behind this book, which I feel was simplified, redundant, and lacking in depth. Overall, this could have been improved by either staying out of policy recommendations altogether and staying as a memoir, or actually delving into those issues at more than a superficial level.
Overall I’d recommend it as a pretty good read.
First, as a kindred soul I found this book spoke to me. There was a lot of wanting better for our hometown and neighbors, “you can’t go home again,” and that deep feeling of trying to find your place that comes through in her writing. The interviews she did were written well.
I was interested in the science and policy behind this book, which I feel was simplified, redundant, and lacking in depth. Overall, this could have been improved by either staying out of policy recommendations altogether and staying as a memoir, or actually delving into those issues at more than a superficial level.
Overall I’d recommend it as a pretty good read.
January 5, 2023
An earnest look at the changes to an Idaho community. Not sure I learned much; Olmstead is a product of Evangelical colleges who is sort of working out that experience along with asking questions about the reality of place. Its a bit formulaic as a book; there's not a lot of surprise, but worth reading.
December 15, 2022
This is a well written, hopeful perspective on the importance of place in our lives and politics. Gracy has an elegant, readable style and the book uses data, story, and argument in a compelling way.
Read
March 15, 2024Beautiful account of homesickness, connectedness, and figuring out what is wrong with the US's dying rural towns.
July 27, 2025
A lament and an ode to what small towns are and could be.
February 17, 2021
Uprooted
By Grace Olmstead
You grow up. You leave the confines of home and hometown to make your way in the big world. You don’t come back. That narrative for success has permeated small town America for decades. And in her first book, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind (due out on March 16th), Grace Olmstead demonstrates how we live out that story at our peril. Not just individually, as rootless people without deep ties to place, but as places themselves no longer sustain life. Olmstead shows readers the landscape of our loss. Soil robbed of nutrients by devastating monocrop farming, and ag land paved over by suburban sprawl. Once healthy towns whose thriving small businesses withered leaving ghost towns. Communities that no longer have centers of activity, but become shopping strips and victims of suburban sprawl. And Olmstead also makes the pain personal, taking us to her hometown of Emmett, Idaho, profiling her family’s history there alongside others who loved and worked the land and were cornerstones of community life. Olmstead, like so many of us, left home, and with each visit back she’s confronted by irrefutable evidence of decline. Where some would only see disaster in the wake of population flight and agribusinesses’ insatiable hunger, Olmstead employs her journalistic training to find and profiles those who refuse to give up, documenting the small strides of tenacious farmers fighting to revitalize the land and community. By book’s end Olmstead contemplates returning to her hometown. Would her presence have any positive impact, or is she better off “sticking” in Virginia, putting down roots and consciously become a contributor to community life there? There are no easy answers for Olmstead, or us. But no matter where you live, the questions are worth exploring in this provocative and engaging read. As Olmstead makes clear, agricultural policy, suburban sprawl, brain drain, and small town collapse impact our country and all of us personally—whether we recognize it or not.
By Grace Olmstead
You grow up. You leave the confines of home and hometown to make your way in the big world. You don’t come back. That narrative for success has permeated small town America for decades. And in her first book, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind (due out on March 16th), Grace Olmstead demonstrates how we live out that story at our peril. Not just individually, as rootless people without deep ties to place, but as places themselves no longer sustain life. Olmstead shows readers the landscape of our loss. Soil robbed of nutrients by devastating monocrop farming, and ag land paved over by suburban sprawl. Once healthy towns whose thriving small businesses withered leaving ghost towns. Communities that no longer have centers of activity, but become shopping strips and victims of suburban sprawl. And Olmstead also makes the pain personal, taking us to her hometown of Emmett, Idaho, profiling her family’s history there alongside others who loved and worked the land and were cornerstones of community life. Olmstead, like so many of us, left home, and with each visit back she’s confronted by irrefutable evidence of decline. Where some would only see disaster in the wake of population flight and agribusinesses’ insatiable hunger, Olmstead employs her journalistic training to find and profiles those who refuse to give up, documenting the small strides of tenacious farmers fighting to revitalize the land and community. By book’s end Olmstead contemplates returning to her hometown. Would her presence have any positive impact, or is she better off “sticking” in Virginia, putting down roots and consciously become a contributor to community life there? There are no easy answers for Olmstead, or us. But no matter where you live, the questions are worth exploring in this provocative and engaging read. As Olmstead makes clear, agricultural policy, suburban sprawl, brain drain, and small town collapse impact our country and all of us personally—whether we recognize it or not.
December 14, 2021
**Review for personal recollection and reflection** **SPOILERS**
Grace Olmstead was born and raised in the small farming community of Emmett, Idaho. She remembers hearing the stories of her family and the past community from her grandfather and great-grandfather and has positive memories of helping shuck corn and other such small chores. She, herself, did not actually have to engage in the grueling work of running a farm. The author left Idaho to attend college in Virginia and still lives in Northern Virginia, working in the D.C. area as a journalist. Olmstead admits early that part of the message of the book--urging more people to stay in and nourish their rural communities--might sound hypocritical given her own decision to leave and the fact that, even after writing this account, she and her husband have still not made any decision about whether to move back to Idaho. Sometimes, that part of the message at least, did sound somewhat hypocritical, but overall, I understood her past and present struggles--the decision to leave to find somewhere she felt she fit in better and the uncertainty about whether to return now that she is older and established--and generally enjoyed her discussion of changes in agriculture over the last several decades and the graying of rural communities, her highlighting of several innovative and rooted farmers in Emmett or the surrounding areas, her exploration of some of the forces that have changed farming and driven people from farming and rural communities, and her suggestions of possible policy changes that might encourage more sustainable growth in rural communities.
My life journey thus far took me from growing up in Maryland, going to school in Virginia, then settling in Idaho (Mountain Home) after meeting my husband in law school in Virginia. Though my path and experience is different, I also currently find myself contemplating a similar problem faced by Olmstead: whether to return home. For me, I want to return home just to be closer to my sister and new niece, not for any of the perhaps more altruistic or "noble" purposes Olmstead expresses such as helping to revitalize a graying rural community and putting down roots in a place that has become unrooted. Still, some of my challenges are similar. Olmstead notes that, though she is a transplant to Virginia, she has started putting down roots there. Even though she still does have roots in Idaho (e.g., her family), as I do in the MD/VA/PA area, she also recognizes that returning would meet uprooting herself from her connected life in VA and forming new roots in ID. I am facing the same worries, as I too have put down some roots here in ID. Those are just the personal questions, though. I mention them really only because I related to that part of the story. The core of the novel discusses the importance of rootedness--both figuratively in terms of connections among people and their communities, and literally in terms of agriculture--the changes that have occurred in rural communities and farming, some of the reasons for those changes, the threats those changes pose, and how we might go forward.
Olmstead presents the problem faced by pretty much every young person who is finished high school and deciding what to do with life after school: do I stay or do I go? The main concern, Olmstead notes, is that fewer and fewer young people are deciding to stay in the rural communities of their childhood, and many of the ones that do stay are not staying because they are the "sticking" type (the type that puts down roots in their beloved community), but rather because they are stuck. The "stuck" are the young people who struggled to get through high school, performed poorly on academic measures, and come from inadequate homes (e.g., neglect, abuse, substance abuse, abject poverty). They are the youth without a choice. Olmstead states that, in contrast, most of the high-achieving young people decide to leave for more and better opportunities--a "brain drain." Why are the high-achieving students leaving? Because their small, rural hometowns offer few opportunities for higher education and better jobs? Young people do not see the ability to "get ahead" in places like Emmett, Idaho. They do not see farming as a viable career.
Much of the book discusses the changes to rural communities and farming and the pressures that have made it more difficult for small farms to be successful. Obviously, many of the big changes to farming resulted directly or indirectly from one primary change: the rise of large agrobusinesses. Before WWI, Olmstead says, farming was more local and on a smaller scale. This generally allowed for more sustainable practices, such as the movement of cattle to different pastures (rather than the destruction of all favored food in one particular pasture), the planting of more perennials whose roots would benefit the health of the soil and prevent erosion, and greater diversity of crops. With WWI, however, production increased enormously and started shifting toward larger agrobusinesses rather than individual farmers. The U.S. shifted to overproduction with the goal of feeding not just the nation, but the entire world. With the goal being the maximization of profits, companies emphasized processes that would be more efficient and cost-effective in the short-term, such as homogenization of crops, mass spraying of crops, and overgrazing and changed feeding of livestock. Olmstead argues that this came at a long-term cost in the quality of the food produced, the health of the soil, and the ability of small farms to survive. Olmstead notes that this method of production is not the best for the nation or the world and is likely not sustainable. Now, just a few companies tend to have a monopoly on all seeds produced, crops produced, and animals raised in the U.S. This grants the companies huge amounts of power and even, in many cases, monopolies, which make it more difficult for small farms to negotiate for fair prices, offer fair wages to their employees, or make decisions that would actually improve the sustainability and health of their farms (since farms must sign licensing agreements that require them to abide by certain conditions, such as those involving pesticides). Big companies are also the recipients of a majority of the farm subsidies provided by the government, which allows these companies to grow even larger while crowding out the small farmer.
Olmstead presents a few examples of individual farmers who are trying to change the practice of small farming in the Treasure Valley (areas in and around Emmett and Boise). For instance, she discusses the Dills, who maintain an organic, sustainable ranching/farming business, which employs innovative methods of feeding the cattle on the grasses so that the health of the cattle, the grasses, and the soil are maintained optimally. Another example, the Waterwheel Garden, is very active in the production of fruits and vegetables for local farmers' markets in sustainable ways. Olmstead discusses practices such as surge irrigation (which waters in sections and skips over parts of the field deemed wet), composting, crop rotation and diversity, the planting of perennial crops which are allowed to get rooted, and different grazing methods which may increase efficiency (at least in the case of surge irrigation) and sustainability and provide enormous benefits in the health of the soil and the crops produced. Olmstead also presents the example of the Little family, which started as sheepherders and has now become a politically and socially influential family (Brad Little is current Governor) with a very large agrobusiness. Few farmers, however, get that opportunity. The large majority of small farms that existed a few decades ago no longer exists, and many more farms are in danger of failing. Young people see no reason to struggle to keep a family farm afloat, so rural communities and farming are rapidly graying.
Olmstead also discusses the problems created the suburbanization of the rural communities. The increase of low-density suburban communities--and their attendant strip malls and coffee shops--has led to the paving of the rural areas. These areas take over spaces that could be used to expand existing farms or develop new ones and are not terribly efficient in terms of water or other services. They cost a lot of money to maintain. Money that might not exist in a few more decades.
Olmstead offers some questions and thoughts about what might be done to reverse the graying, suburbanizing trend of rural America. None of the advice was particularly detailed, and some seemed unrealistic, especially in Idaho. When discussing the Dills and their raising of cattle, Olmstead discusses the inhumanity of large cattle operations, as well as the way these operations result in substandard beef (same for large companies that raise other animals--such as chickens--in horrible conditions for slaughter). Olmstead notes that raising animals in more humane ways that focus on the health and development of the animal will also make the practice more sustainable and produce healthier food products. The catch: the supply would inevitably be lower and the price higher, so consumers would need to do their part in eating less meat. I don't really disagree with Olmstead, here. Overproduction and overconsumption in America--which is certainly caused, at least in part, by the overabundance of food available (and not all of it healthy)--is harmful to human health and the environment. Unfortunately, practically I don't think Americans are going to eat less meat by choice. Some Americans have transitioned to vegetarian or other diets, but the majority of Americans still consume meat, many with every meal. And the problem with saying, well, Americans don't have to agree to eat less meat, if farms change their practices to producing less in more sustainable, healthy, and humane ways, then the decreased supply and increased price will automatically adjust the demand. That is true: for poor Americans. Wealthier Americans would still likely consume as much meat as they want, leaving very little for poorer Americans. This has happened before (and continues to happen with wealthier Americans accessing organic and fresher vegetables and humanely raised animals much more than poorer Americans). So, wealthy Americans would have the ability to meet their dietary needs, while poor Americans would be even more food-insecure than they are now when cheap meat, vegetables, and diary products are readily available. While I agree that the trends of overproduction and inhumanity in the name of efficiency are extremely problematic, there are also definite advantages to the availability of cheap food.
Olmstead notes that she is neither a conservative nor a libertarian. She does not support subsidies for the large corporations. She does think, however, that the use of subsidies to support the social organizations that form connections and communities for small farmers may revitalize rural communities. Young transplants or returning natives may also breathe new life into communities if they invest at the local level. When farmers have more money to spend, the benefit extends beyond the farm into the other businesses and industries in the community directly and indirectly. These local investments, as well as investments into the social organizations themselves, make some sense and could encourage others to remain in their communities and put in the effort. Olmstead then makes two suggestions for regulation that I laughed out loud at considering this is Idaho she's talking about: (1) regulations aimed at discouraging the monopolization of farming and ranching, including seed production, and (2) regulations aimed at zoning or land preservation to prevent suburban growth from threatening the expansion or addition of farms. I am an attorney in Idaho and have seen first-hand the vehement disdain for regulation. I can't imagine such attempts being supported. It also may simply be too late. What if certain land is preserved for farm land, but no small farmer wants to take on the risk and effort?
The book truly highlights the importance of connectedness to people and places. Farmers today are less inclined to pass on their farms, and even their farming knowledge, to the next generation. Olmstead notes that even in her family, where her great-grandfather and grandfather worked the farm dedicatedly and came up with innovative operations, this knowledge was not passed on and the farm was not passed down. I've seen this in my husband's family, both sides of which were involved in farming and ranching, yet none of the next generation took on the family business. Olmstead quotes someone (I forget who) as saying that it is important to have intelligent young people in agriculture, not just in their offices as absentee landlords or in a marketing office for an agriculture organization, but actually in the fields. Intelligent, wise individuals who truly know the land may be in a better position to develop efficient, sustainable, profitable methods of operation. But young people don't see working in the fields as a profitable, intelligent pursuit, so those that are smart and high-achieving want out of their small communities where jobs are scarce. Even if young people today were guaranteed a better profit than past farmers, that they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck, how many would really choose to work 14 or more hours a day in a field?
Olmstead cautions against idealizing a place in nostalgia for it. She recognizes the beauty of Idaho but also its faults. She wonders what she could really bring to Emmett as a returning native--what service could she offer? She wonders how her politics, now molded somewhat by her transplanted community, would fit with Emmett. Our society has become more rootless, Olmstead argues, and she rightly points out that no one party or policy is responsible for this. It is our long-standing interest in profit and individualism, our desire to move on, move up, succeed. Our modern society sometimes seems to interfere with setting down roots. These observations were interesting to me because, compared to where I grew up, I find Idaho to be rooted. Too much so, sometimes. In Maryland and Virginia, I did know many people who were born and raised in and around the area, but I also met many from all across the country and the world. In Idaho, most of the people I know have not left home or have returned home after leaving (except those from the Air Force Base where I live in Mountain Home). In MD and VA, it was hard to find someone who had not travelled to many other places. In ID, I've met so many people who seem to almost disdain travelling to other states and nations and meeting persons different from themselves. Rootedness is important--we must be rooted to our communities in a way that encourages each of us to contribute to our neighborhoods (I think too many of our communities lack this) and families and rooted to the land so that we are proper stewards of the these places. But we must take care not to let rootedness become intransigence or tribalism. Olmstead discusses the racist and discriminatory laws in Idaho and throughout the United States that made it impossible, or insurmountably difficult, for minorities to own and operate successful farms. We must not allow our rootedness to a place or a people become and unwillingness to welcome others--other people, other ideas, other ways of doing things. Rootedness to a community cannot devolve into an us v. them.
Uprooted provided a lot of insights into rural communities. Though none of the suggestions or answers to questions about how to proceed from here are particularly specific, I think Olmstead presented some important observations and thoughts. There are no easy answers, but I think it is clear that a community (any community, whether urban, suburban, or rural) thrives only when its members are connected, invested in the health and success of the community. Rootedness is beneficial to the individual and the community.
Grace Olmstead was born and raised in the small farming community of Emmett, Idaho. She remembers hearing the stories of her family and the past community from her grandfather and great-grandfather and has positive memories of helping shuck corn and other such small chores. She, herself, did not actually have to engage in the grueling work of running a farm. The author left Idaho to attend college in Virginia and still lives in Northern Virginia, working in the D.C. area as a journalist. Olmstead admits early that part of the message of the book--urging more people to stay in and nourish their rural communities--might sound hypocritical given her own decision to leave and the fact that, even after writing this account, she and her husband have still not made any decision about whether to move back to Idaho. Sometimes, that part of the message at least, did sound somewhat hypocritical, but overall, I understood her past and present struggles--the decision to leave to find somewhere she felt she fit in better and the uncertainty about whether to return now that she is older and established--and generally enjoyed her discussion of changes in agriculture over the last several decades and the graying of rural communities, her highlighting of several innovative and rooted farmers in Emmett or the surrounding areas, her exploration of some of the forces that have changed farming and driven people from farming and rural communities, and her suggestions of possible policy changes that might encourage more sustainable growth in rural communities.
My life journey thus far took me from growing up in Maryland, going to school in Virginia, then settling in Idaho (Mountain Home) after meeting my husband in law school in Virginia. Though my path and experience is different, I also currently find myself contemplating a similar problem faced by Olmstead: whether to return home. For me, I want to return home just to be closer to my sister and new niece, not for any of the perhaps more altruistic or "noble" purposes Olmstead expresses such as helping to revitalize a graying rural community and putting down roots in a place that has become unrooted. Still, some of my challenges are similar. Olmstead notes that, though she is a transplant to Virginia, she has started putting down roots there. Even though she still does have roots in Idaho (e.g., her family), as I do in the MD/VA/PA area, she also recognizes that returning would meet uprooting herself from her connected life in VA and forming new roots in ID. I am facing the same worries, as I too have put down some roots here in ID. Those are just the personal questions, though. I mention them really only because I related to that part of the story. The core of the novel discusses the importance of rootedness--both figuratively in terms of connections among people and their communities, and literally in terms of agriculture--the changes that have occurred in rural communities and farming, some of the reasons for those changes, the threats those changes pose, and how we might go forward.
Olmstead presents the problem faced by pretty much every young person who is finished high school and deciding what to do with life after school: do I stay or do I go? The main concern, Olmstead notes, is that fewer and fewer young people are deciding to stay in the rural communities of their childhood, and many of the ones that do stay are not staying because they are the "sticking" type (the type that puts down roots in their beloved community), but rather because they are stuck. The "stuck" are the young people who struggled to get through high school, performed poorly on academic measures, and come from inadequate homes (e.g., neglect, abuse, substance abuse, abject poverty). They are the youth without a choice. Olmstead states that, in contrast, most of the high-achieving young people decide to leave for more and better opportunities--a "brain drain." Why are the high-achieving students leaving? Because their small, rural hometowns offer few opportunities for higher education and better jobs? Young people do not see the ability to "get ahead" in places like Emmett, Idaho. They do not see farming as a viable career.
Much of the book discusses the changes to rural communities and farming and the pressures that have made it more difficult for small farms to be successful. Obviously, many of the big changes to farming resulted directly or indirectly from one primary change: the rise of large agrobusinesses. Before WWI, Olmstead says, farming was more local and on a smaller scale. This generally allowed for more sustainable practices, such as the movement of cattle to different pastures (rather than the destruction of all favored food in one particular pasture), the planting of more perennials whose roots would benefit the health of the soil and prevent erosion, and greater diversity of crops. With WWI, however, production increased enormously and started shifting toward larger agrobusinesses rather than individual farmers. The U.S. shifted to overproduction with the goal of feeding not just the nation, but the entire world. With the goal being the maximization of profits, companies emphasized processes that would be more efficient and cost-effective in the short-term, such as homogenization of crops, mass spraying of crops, and overgrazing and changed feeding of livestock. Olmstead argues that this came at a long-term cost in the quality of the food produced, the health of the soil, and the ability of small farms to survive. Olmstead notes that this method of production is not the best for the nation or the world and is likely not sustainable. Now, just a few companies tend to have a monopoly on all seeds produced, crops produced, and animals raised in the U.S. This grants the companies huge amounts of power and even, in many cases, monopolies, which make it more difficult for small farms to negotiate for fair prices, offer fair wages to their employees, or make decisions that would actually improve the sustainability and health of their farms (since farms must sign licensing agreements that require them to abide by certain conditions, such as those involving pesticides). Big companies are also the recipients of a majority of the farm subsidies provided by the government, which allows these companies to grow even larger while crowding out the small farmer.
Olmstead presents a few examples of individual farmers who are trying to change the practice of small farming in the Treasure Valley (areas in and around Emmett and Boise). For instance, she discusses the Dills, who maintain an organic, sustainable ranching/farming business, which employs innovative methods of feeding the cattle on the grasses so that the health of the cattle, the grasses, and the soil are maintained optimally. Another example, the Waterwheel Garden, is very active in the production of fruits and vegetables for local farmers' markets in sustainable ways. Olmstead discusses practices such as surge irrigation (which waters in sections and skips over parts of the field deemed wet), composting, crop rotation and diversity, the planting of perennial crops which are allowed to get rooted, and different grazing methods which may increase efficiency (at least in the case of surge irrigation) and sustainability and provide enormous benefits in the health of the soil and the crops produced. Olmstead also presents the example of the Little family, which started as sheepherders and has now become a politically and socially influential family (Brad Little is current Governor) with a very large agrobusiness. Few farmers, however, get that opportunity. The large majority of small farms that existed a few decades ago no longer exists, and many more farms are in danger of failing. Young people see no reason to struggle to keep a family farm afloat, so rural communities and farming are rapidly graying.
Olmstead also discusses the problems created the suburbanization of the rural communities. The increase of low-density suburban communities--and their attendant strip malls and coffee shops--has led to the paving of the rural areas. These areas take over spaces that could be used to expand existing farms or develop new ones and are not terribly efficient in terms of water or other services. They cost a lot of money to maintain. Money that might not exist in a few more decades.
Olmstead offers some questions and thoughts about what might be done to reverse the graying, suburbanizing trend of rural America. None of the advice was particularly detailed, and some seemed unrealistic, especially in Idaho. When discussing the Dills and their raising of cattle, Olmstead discusses the inhumanity of large cattle operations, as well as the way these operations result in substandard beef (same for large companies that raise other animals--such as chickens--in horrible conditions for slaughter). Olmstead notes that raising animals in more humane ways that focus on the health and development of the animal will also make the practice more sustainable and produce healthier food products. The catch: the supply would inevitably be lower and the price higher, so consumers would need to do their part in eating less meat. I don't really disagree with Olmstead, here. Overproduction and overconsumption in America--which is certainly caused, at least in part, by the overabundance of food available (and not all of it healthy)--is harmful to human health and the environment. Unfortunately, practically I don't think Americans are going to eat less meat by choice. Some Americans have transitioned to vegetarian or other diets, but the majority of Americans still consume meat, many with every meal. And the problem with saying, well, Americans don't have to agree to eat less meat, if farms change their practices to producing less in more sustainable, healthy, and humane ways, then the decreased supply and increased price will automatically adjust the demand. That is true: for poor Americans. Wealthier Americans would still likely consume as much meat as they want, leaving very little for poorer Americans. This has happened before (and continues to happen with wealthier Americans accessing organic and fresher vegetables and humanely raised animals much more than poorer Americans). So, wealthy Americans would have the ability to meet their dietary needs, while poor Americans would be even more food-insecure than they are now when cheap meat, vegetables, and diary products are readily available. While I agree that the trends of overproduction and inhumanity in the name of efficiency are extremely problematic, there are also definite advantages to the availability of cheap food.
Olmstead notes that she is neither a conservative nor a libertarian. She does not support subsidies for the large corporations. She does think, however, that the use of subsidies to support the social organizations that form connections and communities for small farmers may revitalize rural communities. Young transplants or returning natives may also breathe new life into communities if they invest at the local level. When farmers have more money to spend, the benefit extends beyond the farm into the other businesses and industries in the community directly and indirectly. These local investments, as well as investments into the social organizations themselves, make some sense and could encourage others to remain in their communities and put in the effort. Olmstead then makes two suggestions for regulation that I laughed out loud at considering this is Idaho she's talking about: (1) regulations aimed at discouraging the monopolization of farming and ranching, including seed production, and (2) regulations aimed at zoning or land preservation to prevent suburban growth from threatening the expansion or addition of farms. I am an attorney in Idaho and have seen first-hand the vehement disdain for regulation. I can't imagine such attempts being supported. It also may simply be too late. What if certain land is preserved for farm land, but no small farmer wants to take on the risk and effort?
The book truly highlights the importance of connectedness to people and places. Farmers today are less inclined to pass on their farms, and even their farming knowledge, to the next generation. Olmstead notes that even in her family, where her great-grandfather and grandfather worked the farm dedicatedly and came up with innovative operations, this knowledge was not passed on and the farm was not passed down. I've seen this in my husband's family, both sides of which were involved in farming and ranching, yet none of the next generation took on the family business. Olmstead quotes someone (I forget who) as saying that it is important to have intelligent young people in agriculture, not just in their offices as absentee landlords or in a marketing office for an agriculture organization, but actually in the fields. Intelligent, wise individuals who truly know the land may be in a better position to develop efficient, sustainable, profitable methods of operation. But young people don't see working in the fields as a profitable, intelligent pursuit, so those that are smart and high-achieving want out of their small communities where jobs are scarce. Even if young people today were guaranteed a better profit than past farmers, that they wouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck, how many would really choose to work 14 or more hours a day in a field?
Olmstead cautions against idealizing a place in nostalgia for it. She recognizes the beauty of Idaho but also its faults. She wonders what she could really bring to Emmett as a returning native--what service could she offer? She wonders how her politics, now molded somewhat by her transplanted community, would fit with Emmett. Our society has become more rootless, Olmstead argues, and she rightly points out that no one party or policy is responsible for this. It is our long-standing interest in profit and individualism, our desire to move on, move up, succeed. Our modern society sometimes seems to interfere with setting down roots. These observations were interesting to me because, compared to where I grew up, I find Idaho to be rooted. Too much so, sometimes. In Maryland and Virginia, I did know many people who were born and raised in and around the area, but I also met many from all across the country and the world. In Idaho, most of the people I know have not left home or have returned home after leaving (except those from the Air Force Base where I live in Mountain Home). In MD and VA, it was hard to find someone who had not travelled to many other places. In ID, I've met so many people who seem to almost disdain travelling to other states and nations and meeting persons different from themselves. Rootedness is important--we must be rooted to our communities in a way that encourages each of us to contribute to our neighborhoods (I think too many of our communities lack this) and families and rooted to the land so that we are proper stewards of the these places. But we must take care not to let rootedness become intransigence or tribalism. Olmstead discusses the racist and discriminatory laws in Idaho and throughout the United States that made it impossible, or insurmountably difficult, for minorities to own and operate successful farms. We must not allow our rootedness to a place or a people become and unwillingness to welcome others--other people, other ideas, other ways of doing things. Rootedness to a community cannot devolve into an us v. them.
Uprooted provided a lot of insights into rural communities. Though none of the suggestions or answers to questions about how to proceed from here are particularly specific, I think Olmstead presented some important observations and thoughts. There are no easy answers, but I think it is clear that a community (any community, whether urban, suburban, or rural) thrives only when its members are connected, invested in the health and success of the community. Rootedness is beneficial to the individual and the community.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2025
An important read for anyone living in rural America. This book focuses on Idaho, but apply to any rural area. Farmers and ranchers could benefit from this book also.
March 5, 2022
One of the bigger let-down books I've read in a long time. I was thinking this would read like Hillbilly Elegy, but instead it read like a crop sciences textbook.
April 30, 2021
As a long-time resident of Gem County, (which long-time residents like point out) it was a treat reading about people and places so familiar to me. I think she did an outstanding job of identifying a significant problem across small town, U.S.A. Good writing and research. I don't share her suggested political remedy, but she readily and astutely points out that few in the conservative county will.
It clearly is targeting farm practices and policies, and their affect on small operation farms, rather than a history of Emmett. Not one mention of the mill (now closed) which was a much bigger impact on the town than the farms and orchards.
It is a bit of a paradox: People linked to land, generally speaking, want very limited government. As that land connection is being tremendously threatened, the only line of help is government involvement.
The metaphor of her leaving her roots, and different farming practices causing shallow roots was great. I am very grateful to have read it.
-Robb in Sweet
It clearly is targeting farm practices and policies, and their affect on small operation farms, rather than a history of Emmett. Not one mention of the mill (now closed) which was a much bigger impact on the town than the farms and orchards.
It is a bit of a paradox: People linked to land, generally speaking, want very limited government. As that land connection is being tremendously threatened, the only line of help is government involvement.
The metaphor of her leaving her roots, and different farming practices causing shallow roots was great. I am very grateful to have read it.
-Robb in Sweet
August 21, 2024
“Sometimes you don’t sense or understand your roots, how they make you what you are, until you’ve been uprooted.”
Grace Olmstead’s Uprooted is part memoir marked with longing and self-reflection and part love letter to her hometown of Emmett, Idaho. She writes about Idaho’s recent ecological, cultural, and economic changes and the resulting loss of community with respectful curiosity.
By examining Emmett’s and her own family history, Olmstead echoes arguments about our broken system of agriculture made by Wendell Berry. These comparisons, as applied to Idaho, enrich our understanding of this place.
As someone that recently moved to Idaho from my home, I find myself in a strange and similar (and really ironic) situation to Grace. Her love for her home has opened my eyes to the place that is for me, temporary. It has also allowed me to understand my own motivations for leaving my hometown and my complicated thoughts about returning.
She writes that “when we pull roots out, we disrupt the soil.” Not only is this a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices, it is also a metaphor for the world of transience many of us find ourselves in. Her message is one that will stick with me; that homesickness is an opportunity to respond with love—to take the best parts of home and make our communities better.
Grace Olmstead’s Uprooted is part memoir marked with longing and self-reflection and part love letter to her hometown of Emmett, Idaho. She writes about Idaho’s recent ecological, cultural, and economic changes and the resulting loss of community with respectful curiosity.
By examining Emmett’s and her own family history, Olmstead echoes arguments about our broken system of agriculture made by Wendell Berry. These comparisons, as applied to Idaho, enrich our understanding of this place.
As someone that recently moved to Idaho from my home, I find myself in a strange and similar (and really ironic) situation to Grace. Her love for her home has opened my eyes to the place that is for me, temporary. It has also allowed me to understand my own motivations for leaving my hometown and my complicated thoughts about returning.
She writes that “when we pull roots out, we disrupt the soil.” Not only is this a consequence of unsustainable agricultural practices, it is also a metaphor for the world of transience many of us find ourselves in. Her message is one that will stick with me; that homesickness is an opportunity to respond with love—to take the best parts of home and make our communities better.
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