Jason Peters – författare

The accomplished poet and scholar John Crowe Ransom made profound contributions to twentieth-century American literature. As a teacher at Vanderbilt University he was also a leading member of the Southern Agrarian movement and a contributor to the movement's manifesto I'll Take My Stand. Ransom's Land! is a previously unpublished work that unites Ransom's poetic sensibilities with an examination of economics at the height of the Great Depression. Politically charged with Ransom's aesthetic beliefs about literature and his agrarian interpretation of economics, Land! was long thought to have been burned by its author after he failed to find a publisher. Thankfully, the manuscript was discovered, and we are now able to read this unique and interesting contribution to the Southern Agrarian revival.After the publication of I'll Take My Stand in 1930, Ransom, who provided the book's Statement of Principles in addition to its lead essay, became convinced that the book had not adequately proposed an economic alternative to Northern industrialism, which had fairly obliterated the Southern way of life. Land! was Ransom's attempt to fill this gap. In it he presents the weaknesses inherent in capitalism and argues convincingly that socialism is not only an inadequate alternative but inimical to American sensibilities. He proposes instead that agrarianism, which could flourish alongside capitalism, would relieve the problems of unemployment and the "permanently unemployed." In particular, he argues that what he calls the "amphibian farmer"—who can survive in both a monetary and a non-monetary economy— would never, so long as he relied on himself for necessities, have to fear unemployment. America, Ransom claims, is unique in offering this opportunity because, unlike in European countries, land is plentiful.

Previously unpublished, Land! unites John Crowe Ransom's poetic sensibilities with his argument for an agrarian economy as an alternative to capitalism.In Land!, the accomplished poet and scholar John Crowe Ransom, leading member of the Southern Agrarian movement, examines economics at the height of the Great Depression. Long thought to have been burned by its author after he failed to find a publisher, Land! is politically charged with Ransom's aesthetic beliefs about literature and his agrarian interpretation of economics.After the publication of the Southern Agrarian movement's manifesto I'll Take My Stand in 1930, Ransom, who provided the book's Statement of Principles in addition to its lead essay, became convinced that the book had not adequately proposed an economic alternative to Northern industrialism, which had nearly obliterated the Southern way of life. Land! was Ransom's attempt to fill this gap. In it he presents the weaknesses inherent in capitalism and argues convincingly that socialism is not only an inadequate alternative but inimical to American sensibilities. He proposes instead that agrarianism, which could flourish alongside capitalism, would relieve the problems of unemployment in America due to its wealth of land. This insightful, long-lost piece of American literature and history speaks to today's socioeconomic times.

A portrait of an American thinker with contributions by Barbara Kingsolver, Bill McKibben, Sven Birkerts, Wes Jackson, and more: "A masterful collection." —Charlotte ObserverEssayist, social critic, poet, "mad farmer," novelist, teacher, and prophet: Wendell Berry has been called many things, but the broad sweep of his contemporary relevance and influence defies facile labels. With a unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions about humankind and our relationship to the land and offers simple but profound solutions. Berry''s writings give voice to a provocative but consistent philosophy that extends far beyond its agrarian core to include elements of sociology, the natural sciences, politics, religion, philosophy, linguistics, agriculture, and other seemingly incompatible fields of study.Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise, original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Each of the contributors—including Hayden Carruth, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Kingsolver, Stanley Hauerwas, Donald Hall, Ed McClanahan, Bill McKibben, Scott Russell Sanders, Norman Wirzba, Wes Jackson, and Eric T. Freyfogle—examines an aspect of Berry''s varied yet cohesive body of work. Also included are highly personal glimpses of Berry: his career, academic influence, and unconventional lifestyle.These deft sketches show the purity of Berry''s agrarian lifestyle and demonstrate that there is nothing simple about the life to which he''s devoted himself. He embraces a life that sustains him not by easy purchase and haste but by physical labor and patience, not by mindless acquiescence to a centralized economy but by attention to local ways and wisdom. This book combines biographical sketches, personal accounts, literary criticism, and social commentary. The result is a rich portrait of one of America''s most profound and honest thinkers.

Essayist, social critic, poet, "mad farmer," novelist, teacher, and prophet: Wendell Berry has been called many things, but the broad sweep of his contemporary relevance and influence defies simple labels. With his unique perspective and far-reaching vision, Berry poses complex questions regarding humankind and our relationship to the land, offering simple but profound solutions. Wendell Berry: Life and Work examines this wise and original thinker, appraising his written work and exploring his influence as an activist and artist. Jason Peters assembles a broad variety of writers to illuminate Berry as he is: a complex man of place and community with an astonishing depth of domestic, intellectual, filial, and fraternal attributes. The result is a rich portrait of one of America's most profound and honest thinkers.

In the United States the conventional left/right distinction has become increasingly irrelevant, if not harmful. The reigning political, cultural, and economic visions of both the Democrats and the Republicans have reached obvious dead ends. Liberalism, with its hostility to any limits, is collapsing. So-called Conservatism has abandoned all pretense of conserving anything at all. Both dominant parties seem fundamentally incapable of offering coherent solutions for the problems that beset us. In light of this intellectual, cultural, and political stalemate, there is a need for a new vision. Localism in the Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto assembles thirty-one essays by a variety of scholars and practitioners--associated with Front Porch Republic--seeking to articulate a new vision for a better future. The writers are convinced that human apprehension of the true, the good, and the beautiful is best realized within a dense web of meaningful family, neighborhood, and community relationships. These writers seek to advance human flourishing through the promotion of political decentralism, economic localism, and cultural regionalism. In short, Front Porch Republic is dedicated to renewing American culture by fostering the ideals necessary for strong communities.

More than a collection of vignettes and stories from garden, grill, and kitchen, The Culinary Plagiarist is a sustained adventure in gustatory delight, an intensely private but candid account of desire and all its objects. Opinionated on the full range of human experience, from fasting to inebriety, from sports to politics, from religion to raunch, it is at once serious, humorous, ironic, reflective, grateful, allusive, and appetitive. Along the way it offers a defense of small-scale, local life, of family, of place, and of "e;the bread we do not live alone by."e; And also the drinks. Don't forget the drinks. This is a book for people who enjoy being alive, whether in the kitchen, the pasture, the library, the barn, the trout stream, the henhouse (or the doghouse), or the bedroom.