Culture, High & Low

Is There Such a Thing as Private Food?

The following is an excerpt from David E. Gumpert’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights (Chelsea Green, 2013) and is reprinted with permission...

Life Under Compulsion: Saying Grace

The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom. 8:21) I am...

Seemliness and Scale

The terms ‘seemly’ (conforming to accepted notions of propriety or good taste) and ‘unseemly’ (not proper or appropriate) describe behaviors which are not, strictly speaking,...

American Agrarian (On Sale Now)

How gratifying to learn of the cultural ascendancy of the Porchers! We’ve made it, we’ve convinced Americans of the abiding values of place, limits,...

It’s a Complicated Life

It’s A Wonderful Life was on my mind again recently, this time while watching Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film, The Bicycle Thief. The leading...

John Taylor of Caroline and Energy Policy

When Odysseus visited Hades, he spoke with many of the greatest fallen Greeks: Achilles, Agamemnon, the prophet Tiresias. He sees many others, and considers...

Life Under Compulsion: Play and No Play

In East Bangor, Pennsylvania (pop. 800), there’s a little diner named for the trolley that used to take people to the once bustling steel...

The Localist and the Big Box Store

Hidden Springs Lane. Should a localist shop at Home Depot? Or Walmart? The question, as I’ve stated it, should taste slightly off, like milk...

Place Isn’t Just Geographical

Rod Dreher’s new book, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, seems to have struck a chord among both sympathizers and critics of Wendell Berry. ...

The Night of Susurrant Voices

God didn't put twelve months on the calendar so we could work them all.