Synonyms
Introduction
Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society” (Montmarquet 1989, viii). Despite the fact that the “march of progress” increasingly displaces the agrarian way of life, leaving agrarianism largely anachronistic, the agrarian idyll has remained astonishingly persistent. In the contemporary United States, farmers now comprise less than two percent of the population and four out of five citizens live in either urban or peri-urban environments. Nevertheless, the constellation of values associated with agrarianism still hold astounding purchase on the American imagination. More than merely a synonym for agriculturalist, farmer, or peasant, an agrarian embraces a complex paradigm for conceptualizing and...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Berry, W. (1977). The unsettling of America: Culture and agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Carlisle, L. (2014). Critical agrarianism. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 29(2), 135–145.
Donahue, B. (2001). Reclaiming the commons. In E. T. Freyfogle (Ed.), The new agrarianism: Land, culture, and the community of life (pp. 197–215). Washington: Island Press.
Freyfogle, E. T. (2001). The new agrarianism: Land, culture, and the community of life. Washington: Island Press.
Freyfogle, E. T. (2007). Agrarianism and the good society: Land, culture, conflict, and hope. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Grey, S. H. (2014). The gospel of the soil: Southern agrarian resistance and the productive future of food. Southern Communication Journal, 79(5), 387–406.
Griswold, A. W. (1948). Farming and democracy. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Guthman, J. (2004). Agrarian dreams: The paradox of organic farming in California. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hagenstein, E. C., Gregg, S. M., & Donahue, B. (2011). American georgics: Writings on farming, culture, and the land. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hanson, V. (1995). The other Greeks: The family farm and the agrarian roots of western civilization. New York: Free Press.
Hofstadter, R. (1955). The age of reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York City: Vintage Books.
Inge, T. M. (1969). Agrarianism in American literature. New York: Odyssey Press.
Jackson, W. (1980). New roots for agriculture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Jackson, W. (1996). Becoming native to this place. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Lester, C. (2006). Up from the mudsills of hell: The farmers’ alliance, populism, and progressive agriculture in Tennessee, 1870–1915. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Marx, L. (1964). The machine in the garden: Technology and the pastoral ideal in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Montmarquet, J. A. (1989). The idea of agrarianism: From hunter-gatherer to agrarian radical in western culture. Moscow: University of Idaho Press.
Singer, R. (2011). Visualizing agrarian myth and place-based resistance in south central Los Angeles. Environmental Communication, 5, 344–349.
Smith, H. N. (1950). Virgin land: The American west as symbol and myth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Summerhill, T. (2005). Harvest of dissent: Agrarianism in nineteenth-century New York. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Thompson, P. (1995). The spirit of the soil: Agriculture and environmental ethics. London: Routledge Books.
Thompson, P. (2010). The agrarian vision. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press.
Wirzba, N. (2003). The essential agrarian reader: The future of culture, community, and the land. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature B.V.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Jones, B.M. (2019). American Agrarianism. In: Kaplan, D.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1179-9_566
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1179-9_566
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-1178-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-1179-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities