A soulful, searching collection of essays that tackle the complexities of contemporary America from "the prophet of rural America" (New York Times).

From the war in Iraq to Hurricane Katrina to the political sniping engendered by Supreme Court nominations-contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, "the prophet of rural America" (New York Times) and one of the country's foremost cultural critics, responds 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. "Everything in the book illumines." -Booklist

"[Berry's] poems, novels and essays . . . are probably the most sustained contemporary articulation of America's agrarian, Jeffersonian ideal." -Publishers Weekly

"Wendell Berry is one of those rare individuals who speaks to us always of responsibility, of the individual cultivation of an active and aware participation in the arts of life." -The Bloomsbury Review

Autorentext

Wendell Berry is the author of fifty books of poetry, fiction, and essays. He was recently awarded the Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Louis Bromfield Society Award. For over forty years he has lived and farmed with his wife, Tanya, in Kentucky.

Klappentext

The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations-contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, responds 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.