An Agrarian Proposal: New England Agrarianism in Service of the Common Good
Ebook
An Agrarian Proposal examines how the communitarian perspectives shared among colonial New England's settlers and the farming methods they employed can be adapted to cultivate contemporary agricultural practices, policies, and ethical commitments. Together these promote sustainable farming and land stewardship, even as they valorize farming as a vital locus for cultivating virtue. In contrast to the celebration of libertarian ideals and the general distrust of government regulation characterizing the writings of many prominent modern agrarian writers who follow the tradition of Jefferson and the Southern agrarians, An Agrarian Proposal explores how faith-based commitments shared among colonial New England's settlers resulted in resource distribution and stewardship practices that created a sustainable approach to land and resource management. An Agrarian Proposal adds to contemporary considerations of the ethics and practices of agrarianism by exploring a time and place where regulation was deemed a necessary means of fostering good land stewardship and where a faith-based communitarianism challenged individualism to promote sustainable land practices by individuals farming New England's rocky and isolated fields.
“A noteworthy contribution to contemporary proposals to reform agricultural policy in a way to save us from environmental catastrophe. . . . If you believe history can be a guide to the future and that Christian theism, properly understood, might provide the basis for public policy, read this book. You’ll find an incisive analysis of what ails American agriculture—and America.”
—Gary Comstock, North Carolina State University
“This timely study of the communitarian agrarianism of New England, as contrasted with Southern libertarian agrarianism, is essential reading for followers of the stewardship tradition, as well as for students of American intellectual history. Its recommendations deserve to be heeded at the levels of both local state and federal government.”
—Robin Attfield, Cardiff University, emeritus
- Title: An Agrarian Proposal: New England Agrarianism in Service of the Common Good
- Authors: Charles Taliaferro, Rebecca Judge
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666710113, 9781666710090, 9781666710106, 1666710113, 1666710091, 1666710105
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666710113
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-22T05:56:16Z
Rebecca Judge is Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies and holds the Husby-Johnson Endowed Chair of Business and Economics, St. Olaf College.
Charles Taliaferro is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Oscar and Gertrude Boe Overby Professor Emeritus, St. Olaf College.