Tag Archives: farming

Infrastructure: A Field Guide

Posted on September 14, 2017 by smellincoffee

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape© 1999, 2014 Brian Hayes544 pages Here at last is a book for those of us who constantly gaze out the car window at the fixtures on utility poles, or drums mounted in … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

O Pioneers!

Posted on June 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

O Pioneers! © 1913 Willa Cather 230 pages The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. Hannover, Nebraska, is a frontier town on the brink of failing, a temporary camp upon a wild … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Harvest of Rage

Posted on May 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning© 1997 Joel Dyer307 pages In the spring of 1996, the peace of Oklahoma City was shattered when a truck bomb ignited outside a federal office.  Nearly two hundred people were … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Seeing like a State

Posted on October 9, 2014 by smellincoffee

Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed© 1999 James Scott464 pages             Seeing like a State scrutinizes the organizational approach of state governments and other large institutions from the … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews, Society and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

Posted on October 3, 2014 by smellincoffee

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer© 2010 Joel Salatin300 pages Joel Salatin is crazy and glad to be so;  in print and in media like Food, Inc and Fresh, he gleefully rejects what the late 20th century produced as conventional … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Society and Culture | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

I’ll Take My Stand

Posted on March 29, 2014 by smellincoffee

I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition © 1930 various authors. 410 pages  “There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called The Old South…Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow…Here was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Society and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England

Posted on March 13, 2014 by smellincoffee

Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England© 2008 Sally Crawford224 pages             Who were the Anglo-Saxons? For a people conquered in 1066, their culture seems strangely dominant;  the land the Normans conquered remains England, not Greater Normandy, and Norman French is only … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

dirt

Posted on March 7, 2014 by smellincoffee

dirt: the erosion of civilizations© 2007 Peter R. Montgomery295 pages             Civilizations rise or crumble on the soundness of their dirt, says David Montgomery. The life of a people is tied to the life of its soil, in its ability … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Home Economics

Posted on September 28, 2013 by smellincoffee

Home Economics© 1987 Wendell Berry192 pages The term economics originally referred to household management, and to Wendell Berry, that’s what it should remain still. Home Economics collects essays on the meaning and relation of economy to human life. In it, … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cattle

Posted on December 13, 2012 by smellincoffee

Cattle: an Informal Social History© 2001 Laurie Winn Carlson321 pages Consider…the cow. A humble creature, its dopey expression reveals no vast intelligence, and its barrel of a body gives it virtually no athletic ability, but it is remarkable if nothing … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments