Though the book may scare off almost as many prospective farmers as it encourages, the contributors argue their cases with...
Longtime advocates of sustainable agriculture join with new voices for a comradely take on the challenging future of farming.
Edited by Stone Barns Center communications director Hodgkins (editor: The Field Guide to the Nature Conservancy, 2003, etc.), with illustrations by Wormell, the title is a riff on Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. The anthology features contributions by a host of professional and nonprofessional writers with close ties to, or an abiding affinity for, the land, and many of the pieces read rather like a special section of Mother Jones, with a characteristic political slant. The core of the book is an ode to agricultural landscapes and heritage that registers concerns about “feeding people, fostering community, sustaining livelihoods, restoring soil, sequestering carbon, protecting natural systems and reconnecting us to the land.” It is also shot through with cautionary tales about the folly of large-scale corporate farming, misguided government programs, the graying of the American farmer, and the precipitous decline in their numbers. But the warnings are balanced by plausible strategies for reforming our food system, practical advice, and optimism regarding farming's future in this noble, difficult field. If occasionally the optimism smacks of wishful thinking, its tenets still may be pivotal in dealing with global ecological change. Some writers rail against the use of chemicals and high-productivity farming that depletes the soil, while others recognize that us-versus-them rancor serves no one and that educated, demanding consumers as well as small-scale farmers can help the big boys see the light (and the rest of us eat more healthily). The themes of the collection make repetition inescapable, which can get tiresome, though many of the less didactic pieces are lovely—e.g., Mas Masumoto's lyrical letter to his farmer daughter. Other notable contributors include Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, Alice Waters, Temple Grandin, Michael Pollan, Rick Bayless, and Marion Nestle.
Though the book may scare off almost as many prospective farmers as it encourages, the contributors argue their cases with an effective polemical tenor.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61689-530-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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