Wendell Berry

A comprehensive examination of Berrys entire career. Well organized and comprehensive in scope, the study considers Berrys complete body of work and features a chronology and the text of Angyals 1991 interview with Berry. Angyal characterizes Berrys work as an attempt to articulate and preserve the best in the agricultural tradition of the authors 1930s boyhood the rural world of the small landowners and tobacco farmers who were the last generation of skilled men to use their own hands to work the land. Angyal convincingly presents Berrys body of work as an ardent espousal of Thomas Jeffersons agrarian ideal of a nation of small farmers and reveals the reformist social and ecological agenda underlying Berrys literary vision. Angyal concludes that Berrys advocacy of traditional rural life is both balanced and sharpened with an informed ecological vision and deep understanding of the complex relationships among the individual, the family, the community, and the environment.