A Continuous Harmony

A collection of essays on agrarian living from the poet and author hailed as "America's greatest philosopher on sustainable life" ( The Chicago Tribune ).

In A Continuous Harmony , renowned poet, farmer, and environmental activist Wendell Berry makes an impassioned case for returning to a way of life Americans once lived on small family farms. The book's title is taken from an account by the American mountaineer Thomas F. Hornbein on his travels in the Himalayas. "It seemed to me," Horenbein wrote, "that here man lived in continuous harmony with the land, as much as briefly a part of it as all its other occupants."

Wendell Berry's second collection of essays, A Continuous Harmony includes the seminal "Think Little," which appeared in The Last Whole Earth Catalogue , and beautifully advocates for small actions that can lead to profound change. The collection's centerpiece, "Discipline and Hope," is an insightful and articulate essay advocating for what he calls "a new middle." Taken together, this collection offers "a dignified and lucid statement of the need for present attention--love--for the land" ( The Boston Phoenix ).