"Rooted in a fruitful history, this manifesto for the next food revolution by acclaimed environmental historian Kate Brown speaks to nature lovers, food activists, social justice warriors, urban planners, WOOFers, and Idealists of all varieties. Is a trip to the farmer's market nearly a religious ritual for you? Do you love composting? This rich and fascinating history justifies your passions. Beginning in the 17th century, British peasants lost the commons from which they had fed themselves for generations when capitalists frowned on self-provisioning in order to encourage wage labor. But small-scale gardeners in Paris, Berlin, London and elsewhere fought back, building topsoil in the city with composted garbage and other animal and human waste. They created the most productive, sustainable agriculture in recorded human history, growing local, diverse, organic food on marginal land without burning fossil fuels, creating ecologically and socially diverse networks of flora, fauna, and people. In Nazi Berlin, working-class gardeners harbored dissidents ands Jews throughout the war. On the fringes of Washington, DC, Black Southern migrants built communities around gardens and orchards, the produce funding home-ownership. Behind the Iron Curtain, Soviet and post-Soviet garden allotments prevented a recurrence of mass famine. In post-war America, suburban lawns took on a totalitarian character: gardeners, particularly gardeners of color, fined and harangued for defying the flat green conformity of turf. Yet the creativity of gardeners inspires hope in the 21st century; in rust-belt Mansfield, OH, helping prisoners to imagine fruitful lives. in the sinking, nitrogen-soaked Netherlands, dependent on industrial food, a progressive movement for community gardens and food forests provide an inspiring vision of a vastly more sustainable future. Down to earth gardeners, working with each other and with nature, have reaped abundant harvests while fostering mutual aid and political engagement. Grafting contemporary experience and concerns onto every historical chapter, Kate Brown creates a mesmerizing hybrid of archival historical research (about half or two-thirds of the book) and contemporary personal interviews and experience, resulting in an eloquent narrative deeply rooted in history, full of colorful stories delivering eye-opening information. The food-industrial complex is the primary contributor to climate change. Call it a utopian dream, but urban gardening offers much-needed hope"-- Provided by publisher.
Nurturing health, hope, and community, gardeners in cities and suburbs are reclaiming lost commons, transforming vacant lots into vibrant plots, turning waste into compost, and recreating what was once the most productive agriculture in recorded human history.In a history that has been hidden in plain sight, working-class gardeners have consistently played an outsized role. In London, they devised ways to feed themselves when wage labor fell short. In Paris, a superabundance of horse manure in the streets nourished urban gardens that fed two million residents. In Berlin, gardeners built social safety nets for those marginalized by the state. In Washington, DC, African American migrants brought rural traditions of self-provisioning that were later disrupted by “urban renewal.” In rustbelt Mansfield, Ohio, farming ex-cons grow hope for the city’s future. In post-Soviet Estonia, shared gardens became lifelines for survival amid economic upheaval. And in Amsterdam, activists are reclaiming sustainable farming practices in a sinking landscape oversaturated with fertilizers.Tilled into this rich history of urban agriculture is an inspiring layer of contemporary activism. Each chapter includes contemporary stories of people from all walks of life who, in their gardens, are continuing a great tradition of mutual aid, political resistance, and bold experiments in sustainability.Tiny Gardens Everywhere
From the eighteenth century to the twenty–first, the surprising history and inspiring contemporary panorama of urban gardening: nurturing health, hope, and community.
