From Publishers Weekly
In eight visionary or polemical essays, Berry ( Fidelity ) sounds the themes of decentralization, renewal of community and ecological awareness that inform his previous books. Assailing the U.S. government's role in the Persian Gulf War, the Kentucky poet/farmer/conservationist calls for the creation of a peace academy and urges Americans to "waste less, spend less, use less, want less, need less." He condemns the Reagan and Bush administrations' international trade policies that, in Berry's view, bring many nations' health and safety standards under the influence of agribusiness. Although he is critical of smoking, his strained defense of U.S. governmental assistance to tobacco growers who agree to limit production may gladden cigarette smokers and anger their opponents. In the title essay, Berry interprets the charges made by Anita Hill at Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearing as a symptom of community disintegration, then goes on to consider sexual candor and community limits on free speech. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Eight exhortatory essays (some of which appeared previously in the Atlantic Monthly, The Progressive, and elsewhere) by the Kentuckian fiction writer (Fidelity, 1992, etc.) and moral critic (What are People For?, 1990, etc.). Berry once again carves out a unique position in American social debate: not liberal (he hates big government), not conservative (he hates big corporations), not libertarian (he would balance individual rights with those of the commonweal), but always sharp-tongued and aglow with common sense. His pessimism seems to grow with each volume, as he sees the nation in a tailspin toward moral and economic chaos. His targets proliferate: the military and its Gulf War (he calls for a national peace academy); profiteering industrialists who ravage economies around the world; addiction to drugs, war, TV, and junk products; public schooling, which instills mediocrity in place of moral values; media exploitation of sexuality, which robs it of sacred meaning; ``tolerant and multicultural people'' who defend special interest groups but defame ``people who haven't been to college, manual workers, country people, peasants, religious people, unmodern people, old people''--in other words, Berry's friends, neighbors, and comrades. If the diagnosis is bitter, so is the cure: ``economic secession.'' For Berry, small communities based on the household are our only hope. He calls upon these localities to seize control of their economic and social lives, supporting home-grown agriculture, manufacturing, and education, and establishing moral codes that reflect eternal truths. Power-to-the-people, 90's-style. A powerful emetic, worth a swallow. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


From the Publisher
"Read it with pencil in hand, make notes, and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here."--The New York Times Book Review

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly