Book Report

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture mainly focuses on the development, unsettlement, and the agricultural growth of America. The author, Wendell Berry, makes several points throughout the book about how we, as a growing and developing country, have abused our industrial power and destroyed the most important bond between mankind and the earth. Because this important bond has been broken, it is becoming harder and more difficult to gain that relationship back. Also as a result of this, we are causing pollution, land destruction, and several other casualties. Berry also talks about how small farmers are disappearing and deteriorating because of laws created by the government to help aid agribusiness. "One cannot sell milk from a few cows anymore; the law-required equipment is too expensive. Those markets were done away with in the name of sanitation--but, of course, to the enrichment of the large producers. We have always had to have 'a good reason' for doing away with small operators, and in modern times the good reason has often been sanitation." Berry discusses America as a people, our culture, our agriculture, our modern agricultural ideal, our energy use, consumption, and our connection between our bodies and the earth.

Wendell Berry has given some fantastic evidence of America’s development, unsettlement, and the agricultural growth. Berry discusses several events that prove the seriousness and destruction of America’s agriculture revolution. Historically, this book is extremely important because it covers America’s whole transformation into the agricultural revolution. This book talks about America’s history from how we used to be, sustainable and in balance with the world, to what we have become, destructive and mindless.

This book has significantly changed my view on the world. It has shown me America’s lifestyle and timeline, and through discovering and understanding it, I have come to appreciate the earth more. It is a powerful experience to get to know our history in depth, and learn how we can try to stay closer and keep that bond with the earth.

Berry’s strongest point that was mainly brought up in the book, was how we have become extremely disconnected to our food, and how we are mindlessly consuming to a dangerous point. This subject and theme I found is very much connected to the Allegory of the Cave by Plato. The Allegory of the Cave is described as a cave with captives inside not being held against their will, but tricked to think so. While they are inside the cave they are facing a wall being shown shadows on the wall (like a puppet show). The shadows are manipulated by other people, making the captives’ think that this is how life is supposed to be because they have never seen different. Outside of the cave is truth. Berry uses this allegory and makes deep connections in her book. Americans as the captives, the shadows being the media, advertisements, etc. the people manipulating shadows are agribusiness’, government, media, and the cave being America, media, or the safety of our blissfulness.

Berry also makes a strong point on the superficiality of America, "Democracy has involved more than the enfranchisement of the lower classes; it has meant also the popularization of the more superficial upper-class values: leisure, etiquette (as opposed to good manners), fashion, everyday dressing up and a kind of dietary persnicketiness. We have given a highly inflated value to 'days off' and to the wearing of a necktie; we pay an exorbitant price for the looks of our automobiles; we pay dearly, in both money and health, for our predilection for white bread. We attach much the same values to kinds of profession and levels of income that were once attached to hereditary classes." There aren’t too many weak points made in this book, all of them are strong and connected to the main theme in one way or another.

I would definitely recommend this book to other students my age. Although this book seems like a young adult read it is a strong book with great points, which everyone should read if they are interested in the American Revolution and America’s history. Also anyone who wants to learn more about his or her relationship with food, body, and the earth should look into this.

This next quote really summarizes the main point Wendell Berry is trying to make in the book. "In The Unsettling of America I argue that industrial agriculture and the assumptions on which it rests are wrong, root and branch; I argue that this kind of agriculture grows out of the worst of human history and the worst of human nature… Every good and perfect gift comes from politicians, scientists, researchers, governments, and corporations. Evils, however, are inevitable; there is just no use in trying to choose against them. Thus all industrial comforts and labor- saving devices are the result only of human ingenuity and determination (not to mention the charity and altruism that have so conspicuously distinguished the industrial subspecies for the past two centuries), but the consequent pollution, land destruction, and social upheaval have been 'inevitable.'…"

Biology, the study of life, is found in this book because the study done in it is about the life, history, and growth of America’s agriculture, culture, development, and unsettlement. After reading this book, I feel more excited, and urged to live a sustainable life. I’ve recently been interested in farming plants and foods, and this book just encouraged me to study it more, "The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all."

The topic of farming your own food and supporting local farmers was evident through out the entire book, which made it more interesting for me to read. Overall I really enjoyed discovering America’s agricultural history, unsettlement, development, and learning more about how I can be more connected with the earth.

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