The Way of Ignorance
And Other Essays
Berry, Wendell
Kemmis, Daniel (CON)
White, Courtney (CON)
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BOOK SUMMARY
Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence.
BOOK SYNOPSIS
The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, Terry Schiavo  contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the free market, or free enterprise? What is really involved in our National Security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career.
BOOK EXCERPTS
20
BOOK REVIEWS
From the Publisher
In a democratic commonwealth, what are the costs and consequences of rugged individualism?
• What, in the fullest sense, is involved in our National Security?
• When considering Weapons of Mass Destruction, does our inventory include soil loss, climate change, and ground water poisoning? And should we add Economic Weapons of Mass Destruction to our list of targets?
• Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the "free market" or "free enterprise"?
• What is the price of ownership without affection?
These and several other questions lie at the heart of Wendell Berry's latest collection of essays, writing "motivated by fear of our violence to one another and to the world, and my hope that we might do better." Setting aside abstraction in favor of clarity, coherence, and passion, this new book provides a setting of immediate danger and profound hope. The core of this collection--"Imagination in Place," "The Way of Ignorance," "Quantity and Form," "The Purpose of a Coherent Community," "Compromise, Hell!"--consists of some of the finest essays of Wendell Berry's long career, and the whole offers an exhilarating sense of purpose and a clear call to action.
Kirkus Reviews
Many of the ideas we prize are dangerous and self-destructive; many of the values we profess to cherish we do not practice. Prolific septuagenarian poet, novelist and essayist Berry (Citizenship Papers, 2003, etc.) returns with another collection of essays, most published (or delivered as speeches) in 2004. The astonishing thing about these pieces is not their lucidity and grace, not their plain profundity, but the variety of his subjects, the dimensions of his knowledge, experience, interest, passion. This is not to say that there are no common denominators. Respect for the land, for one another, for God-these appear on virtually every page in some form-as well as essays that focus on politics. Berry does not like what the Republicans are doing, but he chides Democrats for arrogance (behaving as if religious folks are ignorant and stupid), for allowing "values" issues like gay marriage to dominate the discussion, for caring more about winning than about crafting and promulgating a sensible agenda. There are other essays that focus on agriculture and its enemies: arrogance and ignorance and agribusiness. We believe, says Berry, that we can defeat Nature, that there are no deleterious consequences when we lift the lid of a mountain to extract what's inside, that the social consequences of agribusiness (lost farms, decimated towns) are inconsequential. There are essays that focus on spirituality, perhaps none better than "The Burden of the Gospels." Berry asks there: Would we have followed Jesus had we heard him during his lifetime? Are we strong enough to follow his most difficult teachings? There are times when Berry comes across as a bit sanguine, even romantic, about our ancestors'husbandry of their resources (consult, for comparison, Jared Diamond's Collapse), but he is fiercely loyal to his region, to his agrarian roots. "We need to quit thinking of rural America as a colony," he declares. Berry appends two forgettable pieces by others. Provocative, pellucid prose from a master.
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MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1593761198
ISBN(13-digit): 9781593761196
Dewey Decimal: 320
Book Publisher: Pgw
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 180
Paper Weight (lb): 0.60 lb
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