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| Introduction: The Challenge of Berry's Agrarian Vision | ||
| Pt. I | A Geobiography | |
| "A Native Hill" | 3 | |
| Pt. II | Understanding Our Cultural Crisis | |
| The Unsettling of America | 35 | |
| Racism and the Economy | 47 | |
| "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine" | 65 | |
| "Think Little" | 81 | |
| Pt. III | The Agrarian Basis for an Authentic Culture | |
| "The Body and the Earth" | 93 | |
| "Men and Women in Search of Common Ground" | 135 | |
| "Health Is Membership" | 144 | |
| "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community" | 159 | |
| "People, Land, and Community" | 182 | |
| "Conservation and Local Economy" | 195 | |
| Pt. IV | Agrarian Economics | |
| "Economy and Pleasure" | 207 | |
| "Two Economies" | 219 | |
| "The Whole Horse" | 236 | |
| "The Idea of a Local Economy" | 249 | |
| "A Bad Big Idea" | 262 | |
| "Solving for Pattern" | 267 | |
| Pt. V | Agrarian Religion | |
| "The Use of Energy" | 279 | |
| "The Gift of Good Land" | 293 | |
| "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" | 305 | |
| "The Pleasures of Eating" | 321 | |
| Acknowledgments | 329 |
RickM1962
Posted October 7, 2011
Reading the work of Wendell Berry is, and always has been a joy. This collection of essays is certainly no different in that respect. In fact, I can see this becoming one of those special books that keeps finding its way into my hands for years to come. Berry has the special gift of not only writing some of the finest descriptions of nature ever put on paper, but he has the rare gift of making us feel that we are right beside him as he treks through the hills and valleys of Kentucky. So much so that one almost expects to see wet soil clinging to the bottoms of our shoes after reading these marvelous passages. Simply brilliant!
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Posted June 30, 2011
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Posted April 15, 2012
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Overview
"Here is a human being speaking with calm and sanity out of the wilderness. We would do well to hear him."—The Washington Post Book WorldArt of the Commonplace gathers twenty essays by Wendell Berry that offer an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture. Grouped around five themes—an agrarian critique of culture, agrarian fundamentals, agrarian economics, agrarian religion, and geo-biography—these essays promote a clearly defined and compelling vision important to all people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, disease, and destructiveness of contemporary American ...