At Home in Nature - Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America

A very interesting book giving the history of homesteading and spiritual practice and taking as its starting point Thoreau's 'Walden'. The reader is introduced to other pioneers like John Burroughs, while much of the book is devoted to the lives of Scott and Helen Nearing. Wendell Berry also features as a modern exponent. Themes treated include tensions between contemplation and action, personal renewal and cultural reform, and the question of how to relate homesteader identity to its wider social context. It hardly needs saying that a sustainable relationship to nature is a key theme and one that will assume greater prominence in the future.