Reviews
An accessible entry point for readers interested in learning about places other than their own, as well as the interplays between natural resources and human cultivation.
An outstanding work of comparative oral history that artfully situates Mennonite farmers within the context of Anabaptist teachings, the Mennonite diaspora, and the Anthropocene. Offering extensive descriptions of each rural environment and personal stories of life on the land, Loewen helps readers come to know each place comfortably. This excellent book is uniquely positioned to demonstrate how communitarian faith and cultural enclaves compare with 'high modernist' and technocratic government approaches to the environment.
Mennonite Farmers makes an important and original contribution to the history of rural and agricultural communities worldwide. Loewen does an excellent job of documenting and explaining the considerable diversity of experience across and even within seven different Mennonite communities around the world Giving ever-deepening insight into each community, this book will be of interest to scholars in Anabaptist studies, agricultural history, rural life, environmental history, and microhistorical studies.
Royden Loewen's highly engaging account compares how farmers on five continents with shared religious beliefs have differently negotiated their encounters with their environments and modernity. Both global and local, this book will be of great interest to scholars of religion, communities, agriculture, and the environment.
Wonder what a group of farmers from four corners of the globe might discuss if they all came together for a coffee hour? Royden Loewen enlightens us by addressing how culture undergirds agriculture and how belief influences the business of farming. Mennonite Farmers confirms that commitment comes at a cost but can also sustain farm fields and families alike.
Loewen has written an imaginative and graceful global history of Mennonite farming. He builds a compelling history of how local farm communities in the Global North and Global South grappled with—and actively participated in—larger global forces. Mennonite Farmers offers a fresh perspective on the histories of agriculture, environment, and sustainability in the twentieth century.
Book Details
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Sect and Settler in the North: Plowing Friesland, Iowa, Manitoba, and Siberia
2. Peasant and Piety in the South: Planting Java, Matabeleland, and Bolivia's Oriente
3
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Sect and Settler in the North: Plowing Friesland, Iowa, Manitoba, and Siberia
2. Peasant and Piety in the South: Planting Java, Matabeleland, and Bolivia's Oriente
3. Something New under the Mennonite Sun: A Century of Agricultural Change
4. Making Peace on Earth: Seven Farmers and a Faith of the Everyday
5. Women on the Land: Gender and Growing Food in Patriarchal Lands
6. Farm Subjects and State Biopower: Seven Degrees of Separation
7. Vernaculars of Climate Change: Southern Concern, Northern Complacency
8. Mennonite Farmers in "World Scale" History: Seven Encounters on Earth
Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index