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Black Earth And Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm And ClassroomBuy online at Amazon.com Heralding the seventy-fifth anniversary of the quintessential agrarian anthology "I’ll Take My Stand", Zachary Michael Jack, himself a fourth generation farmer’s son, has assembled North America’s foremost contemporary writers on the present rural experience to provide their own twenty-first-century insights.
In the grand tradition of farmer-writers Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, and Andrew Lytle, Black Earth and Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm and Classroom gathers the disparate wisdoms of modern-day stewards of the land including Victor David Hanson, Michael Martone, Linda Hasselstrom, John Hildebrand, "Country Things" cartoonist Bob Artley, and Duane Acker, former U.S. assistant secretary of science and education and former president of Kansas State University. These gifted teachers and growers offer hard-won inspiration from the field and the classroom, exemplifying the multifaceted, farm-grounded talents that call them to lives as writers, visual artists, conservation tillers, environmentalists, economists, policymakers, extension agents, and grassroots activists. Seeking a balanced life that reconciles the hands, heart, and head, they follow roads less traveled to find agrarian lifestyles at once enlightening and challenging. At a time when less than two percent of Americans count themselves as farmers, these writer—all of whom have cultivated the earth and climbed the ivory tower—underscore the diversity of the American farm as a wellspring of learning. Their plainspoken commentaries on modern farming, teaching, and living will remind older generations of time-honored, agrarian values and provide a new generation with a literate, critical account of shifting national priorities.
"At its heart, this book is for the students and teachers among us, formal and informal, certifiable and apocryphal. It’s for the ag-dedicated high schooler about to walk the stage and move on to Iowa State, Michigan State, or Tennessee Tech as much as it is for the ag-inspired teacher about to graduate into the practical and applied world beyond the classroom. This book is for anyone who ever farmed seriously and everyone who ever seriously wanted to farm." — from the preface
"Black Earth and Ivory Tower not only depicts accurately the peculiar attitude toward farming shared by those of us who have had one foot on the farm and one in the university, but it also speaks volumes for all farmer. The essays are excellent in their grasp of the realities of the contemporary agrarian experience and in their poignancy about the bittersweet passing of an American way of life."
— Gene Logsdon, author of All Flesh Is Grass: The Pleasures and Promises of Pasture Farming "Compiled, organized and edited by Zachary Michael Jack (Assistant Professor of English, North Central College, Naperville, Illinois), Black Earth And Ivory Tower: New American Essays From Farm And Classroom is a compendium of articulate, informed and thoughtful commentaries on modern farming, teaching new generations of time-honored agrarian values, and critical accounts of shifting national priorities as America continues the trend of expanding urbanization and declining small farm agriculture. Professor Jack brings a special insight and sensitivity to the issues addressed having been raised on an Iowa farm that his family first settled in the early 1860s. Also available in hardcover (1570035881, $59.95), Black Earth And Ivory Tower is a highly recommended addition to community and academic library Agricultural Studies, Farm Life Studies, and Social Issues reference collections."
-- Midwest Book Review "Black Earth and Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm and Classroom" has been a very enlightening read. I am a city person by birth, and I was surprised at how many of the themes of this book I could relate to. I not only learned a lot about life on a farm; I also learned about life as a teacher. The concept of farming and teaching going hand in hand was an idea I was not fully able to appreciate until I started reading these thirty-four, creative nonfiction essays.
Each author and text is unique, and yet common themes unite every narrative, making this an almost flawless collection. Some of my favorites include "Reading and Writing the Land" by Michael Carey, "Addicted to Work" by Linda Hasselstrom, and "The Way the Country Lies" by Douglas Bauer. I was pleasantly surprised, for instance, by the amount of stories these authors shared intimating sneaking off to read books as children while everyone else worked on the farm. Like many other people who grew up in urban areas, I always imagined farm children as constant workers who spent all their time helping elders.
Many other surprising, stereotype-exploding scenes populate this fine book of nonfiction. After reading the work of these contributors, almost all of whom have won awards for both their teaching and writing, it would be impossible for someone to fall back into the stereotype of thinking that a person from a farm is somehow less cultured or educated, as demonstrated by the credentials of the contributors, which range from U.S. Poet Laureate (Ted Kooser) to former Pulitzer Prize nominee (Robert Higgs).
Jack has done a wonderful job editing and artfully introducing his collection (check out "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Farmer Hyde"), as each essay flows effortlessly into the next one and unusually fine author biographies precede each essay. The personal essays, memoirs, and literary journalism anthologized in "Black Earth" are so thoughtful and at the same time so down-to-earth that it was easy for me to forget that I was also learning a great deal about agriculture as I read. The book's illustrations, drawn from Bob Artley's nationally syndicated "Country Things" cartoon series, make for a delightful bonus.
This would be a great text for teachers, farmers, and students of the land, as well as a general reader interested in farm and ranch life past and present. In a time when farming is a dying art, it's wonderful that a book like this has reestablished the beauty and artistry of both farming and teaching and has perfectly demonstrated why the two go hand in hand.
-- Lily Richards
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