The Unsettling of America

Culture & Agriculture

By: Wendell Berry

Narrated by: Nick Offerman

Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Since its publication in 1977, The Unsettling of America has been recognized as a classic of American letters. In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land - from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it.

Sadly, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. Although “this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong,” Berry writes, there are people working “to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth.” Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.

©1977 Wendell Berry (P)2020 Recorded Books

Really well written and well narrated

Makes me want to move to a farm. A seriously well thought out essay that makes me sad considering nothing has changed in 27 years.

Prescient!

A classic work well ahead of its time. Sadly, it is still almost 100% relevant. The analysis is cross-cutting, with insight offered into agriculture, economics, social theory, ethics, and psychology. And all of it is wrapped in the brilliant and lucid prose-essay style of Wendell Berry. A classic this deserves to be!

Comprehensive, Eye-opening perspective

I love how Wendell Berry takes a holistic approach to this topic, which is still relevant today. His writing is simple but powerful and Nick Offerman does a great reading.

Sanity in a corrupt world

Fantastic delivery by Offerman of Berry's important message. If you are frustrated with government and corporate dysfunction when it comes to the most basic necessities of life and wondering for the life of you why no one is making the ethical, ecological, and patriotic case for common sense and good stewardship, Wendell Berry just might save your sanity and there is no better, more even, or more engaging yet reassuring voice to bring this book to the restless than that of Nick Offerman.

Excellent

A wonderful book on the state of agriculture in the modern west and the dangers that they entail on creation, along with good solutions.

Love the performer they chose!

This is something I plan on listening to over and over, what I got out of it the first listen was wonderful and I look forward to absorbing new information the next time.

Important evergreen message

This book should be mandatory reading/listening for all high school students. As our technology advances we try to use it to replicate billions of years of nature, we should be reconsidering that thought. Excellent book, excellent narrator. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

Some Dated Sections, Still Resonates and Applies Today

Really interesting ideas and points about agriculture and the way it affects our ecosystem, our community, and individuals in particular. As the granddaughter of dairy farmers, most of it rang very true to how my grandparents loved their farm and still made it profitable and healthy. Downgraded because there were some sections that were pretty boring or were now dated. You can tell there was some White male bias, he never considered minority owned farms and the obstacles they face. And the section of Fertility definitely was from 1970s thinking; never considering women have been using birth control since ancient times before there was the Pill or might rather be in the field than the home. But I still enjoy his writing and it reminds me of the old farm community.

Despite those issues, the core message is very appropriate for today and how do we get a balance with our food, health, and the environment. It’s a book I think both liberals and conservatives would like too ha.

A 1977 America

“…For the pursuit of truth by argument and counter argument is a major part of our cultural tradition, from the gospels, and the Platonic dialogues and every county courthouse today. The response to this book has shown, instead, that the universities are not interested in the pursuit of truth by argument. They are interested in preserving the truth of an old argument that for the most part they no longer bother to make, namely: that the world and all its creatures are machines. The organization of the modern University and of modern intellectual life rests upon this argument…”

A lot has changed since 1977, and still so much more has yet to change for the positive. Berry revised on many of these thoughts and arguments later in his 2022 “The Need to be Whole,” where he would update so much of what he talked about in this book. He dives into the changes in the agricultural industry and how the view of manual labor such as farming became looked down upon, and how it got to that point. We still have a lot of problems that existed in 1977, especially in the agricultural industry. I just hope one day we can look at all our farms in America and say they’re 1) American owned, and 2) organic. But as time passes more land has been sold to foreign companies, at least in Oklahoma. I hope one day, that changes, and returns back to American hands that will cultivate the land well, and even heal it.

👍👍👍

I need more books written by Wendell and read by Nick. I’ve listened numerous times.