Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays
by Wendell Berry
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 371)
Read in August, 2007
This is a fine collection of essays that has sparked in me a renewed interest in the world, and the ways in which human beings have chosen to live in relation to it. Berry's reflections refuse easy categorization and are deeply refreshing in the context of blind and deaf media polarization. I was more informed about current issues of political relevance by this ten year-old book than by many hours of news consumption. More importantly, issues are placed squarely in a big-picture context, one w...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommended to Russell by:
Dany Millikinrecommends it for: Freedom lovers, Christians, Teachers, Friends, and Americans
Berry tells it like it is in this accurate portrayal of America. We are a country at war with ourselves. Berry explores the nature of community and how our contributions and interactions with it have become exploitative. The main theme he recapitulates throughout the book is the way that the economy has become "global", so no one is looking out for their neighbor. The farmers in America are not protected from having to compete with the labor of people working in disparate conditio...more
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Read in January, 2006
Down to earth solutions for some of our agricultural problems. I wouldn't call them entirely revolutionary as much as that they are practical with a strong air of plain common sense. Sustainable agricultural practices where cities live in balance with their surrounding environment. Advocating more locally grown produce and allowing imports of only the produce that cannot be grown locally. This would force diversification of agriculture and make small farms more profitable once again.
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Read in June, 2007
A provocative little book. The main theme of it is: America would be much better off if we returned to a community focused perspective. This is theme is applied mostly to agriculture, which the author cares a lot about, but also to sex, war and consumerism. One thing that I found very refreshing about Berry is that he's conservative, but conservative in a way that seems true to the word itself, unlike most political conservatives.
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Read in June, 2003
My favorite of Berry's essays. Challenging ideas, most circling around the effacing of community and community values in our nation. Berry talks, too, about the fallacy of "global thinking" as a concept. He argues that no one can think "globally." We are people who are called to go there, live, dig in deep and make our thinking local---where it affects us.
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Read in January, 2003
Wendell Berry is great for kicking you out of your comfort zone and making you really think. Not as good with what you are to do with your new-found angst, but his ability to raise awareness is good enough reason to read him. What is scary is that at the end of the essays you expect the dates to be current -- and they are sometimes 20-30 years old.
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Berry is spot-on, and a delight to read. If nothing else, read his preface, "The Joy of Sales Resistance". Perhaps one of my favorite lines: "If you have bought this book, I thank you. If you have borrowed this book, I commend your frugality. If you have stolen this book, may it add to your confusion."
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Read in December, 2000
Great essays on the above topics from the conservative, but at the same time progressive farmer-philosopher-environmentalist. Very well written and well developed ideas, and stimulating, unexpected arguments. Berry is an unusual and refreshing writer and thinker.
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Read in April, 2008
one of the most provocative books i've read. period. This was my first experience with Wendell Berry, and safe to say won't be my last.
It even got me a conversation with a staff person of a republican senator from NC on the DC Metro.
It even got me a conversation with a staff person of a republican senator from NC on the DC Metro.
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my first introduction to berry. profoundly pragmatic, you can never tell whether he's liberal or conservative (labels are so important in these times). and this sold me on his writing more than anything. the pragmatic ambiguity of life.
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Not a light read; it challenges you as you read it, but it's not pretentious or preachy because Berry's humor always tempers the anger you feel as you read his blunt assessments of how our society operates (or more often, doesn't).
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Read in November, 2007
Really thought-provoking, especially the last essay from which the book takes its title. I can see his influence on subsequent writers, particularly with regard to his thoughts on the role of community in public & private life.
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Read in January, 1994
In his typical poetic prose, Berry offers insights on the things that matter most: our connectedness to others and to our broader world. At a time when life was rough and uncertain, this book helped me keep my compass steady.
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Read in June, 2008
Berry writes this in the early 90s, though it is as if he wrote it today as it relates to the Iraq War. His depth of insight into people and our place in the Economy, as he defines it, is humbling and inviting.
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Read in June, 2007
Amazing essays on the importance of local economy, agriculture, and community. Wendell Berry is an American prophet and a great writer.
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These essays are right on. They changed the way that I want to live my life and the lens through which I view all things political.
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Read in January, 2008
Quintessential Berry, though I think I liked Another Turn of the Crank better. Why aren't more people aware of his work?
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Read in September, 2005
And, again, a favorite. He has more common sense than anyone I have ever read. I love common sense.
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I only read the title essay, but it was amazing!
I plan to blog about it more when I get time.
I plan to blog about it more when I get time.
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Read in February, 2008
prescient on the local food issue, but frustratingly emphatic on the importance of marriage . ..
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 4.26 (237 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.26 (237 ratings) number of reviews: 29popular shelves
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quote
"Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing..."
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