The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic Agriculture: Peter Rosset, Medea Benjamin: 9781875284801: Amazon.com: Books

The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic Agriculture: Peter Rosset, Medea Benjamin: 9781875284801: Amazon.com: Books






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The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic AgriculturePaperback – July 1, 2002
by Peter Rosset (Editor), Medea Benjamin (Editor)
3.0 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews

The first detailed account of Cuba's turn to a system of organic agriculture prepared on an international scientific delegation and fact-finding mission on low-input sustainable agriculture which visited Cuba in late 1992.



Product details

Paperback: 85 pages
Publisher: Ocean Press (July 1, 2002)
Language: English

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3 customer reviews
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dd
5.0 out of 5 starsshould be required textApril 17, 2001
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

for any environmental studies program. Ideas put to the test on an island with very little outside resources. Excellent discussion material. Unique insight into the revolution.

6 people found this helpful

5.0 out of 5 starsFirst-rate scientific and social examination of Cuba's agricJanuary 24, 1999
Format: Paperback

Cuba's social and economic systems have been in crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The prime concern of the country is how to feed its citizens so that every member has an adequate and nutritious diet. Rosset and Benjamin's scientific delegation to Cuba examined the history leading up to the current crisis, and the social, political and economic factors which maintain the food shortage up to this day. They then launch on an encyclopedic survey of the agricultural and social reform programs launched by Cuba's government to remedy the crisis. 

The country has adopted a Low Input, Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) style of food production in order to cope with drastically reduced inputs of chemicals, fertilizer, fuel, and capital since the USSR collapsed. Research programs abound, with several hundred research and development facilities in a country little larger than Vancouver Island, B.C. 

They are studying and implementing programs in non-chemical control of insects, weeds, and disease; soil remediation and fertility; labour distribution; post-harvest physiology and storage; and the distributions of production and population centers. The Greening of the Revolution combines the expertise of a 20 member delegation who spent a week in 1992 travelling the country. It reads like a comprehensive Annual Review article, with insightful analysis throughout, but not for the faint-of-heart looking for a light read. The 1992 date is now 7 years past, it would be of great interest to have a second edition of the book published in a repeat of the 1992 surveys. The book could also use some close editing; although logically laid out and of strong scientific style, there were reduncies and inconsistencies sprinkled throughout the text. In all, though, an excellent and compelling analysis of a country in transition.
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Dalton C. Rocha
1.0 out of 5 starsPure castrist propaganda.March 27, 2006
Format: Paperback

Some years ago, a brazilian lend this book to me.It's a small and concise book.

In fact the only quality of this bad book is his small size.

All the rest are ridiculous Castro's propaganda.

Well, I'm an (unemployed) brazilian agronomist.I must tell you that Cuba has nothing to teach about agriculture.In fact Castro's Cuba is, a complete agriculture failure.The big Cuba's crop is sugar.Well, in 1912, Cuba produced more sugar then in 2003,2004 and 2005.

Cuba's experimente with organic agriculture was and is a failure.In fact, in Cuba, the general people has no flowing water, eletricity,etc.

Outside privileges and money support to latin american marxists, Cuba's money goes to propaganda.And this is pure castrist propaganda.

3 people found this helpful

Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth eBook: Charles Massy: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store

Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth eBook: Charles Massy: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store




Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
by Charles Massy (Author)


4.3 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews

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Is it too late to regenerate the earth? Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our Australian landscape and our planet. This ground-breaking book will change the way we think of, farm and grow food. Author and radical farmer Charles Massy explores transformative and regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health. It is a story of how a grassroots revolution – a true underground insurgency – can save the planet, help turn climate change around, and build healthy people and healthy communities, pivoting significantly on our relationship with growing and consuming food. Using his personal experience as a touchstone – from an unknowing, chemical-using farmer with dead soils to a radical ecologist farmer carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health – Massy tells the real story behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. He shows – through evocative stories – how innovative farmers are finding a new way and interweaves his own local landscape, its seasons and biological richness. At stake is not only a revolution in human health and our communities but the very survival of the planet. For farmer, backyard gardener, food buyer, health worker, policy maker and public leader alike, Call of the Reed Warbler offers a tangible path forward for the future of our food supply, our Australian landscape and our earth. It comprises a powerful and moving paean of hope.

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File Size: 1770 KB
Print Length: 588 pages
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Kirkus Reviews--

"An Australian sheepherder and range specialist looks at his home's biotic communities and how to improve their health with a more thoughtful kind of agriculture. Arachnophobes take note: There's a reason you want to see a lot of spiders in the tall grass, for, as Massy (Breaking the Sheep's Back, 2011, etc.) instructs, it means that good things are happening. 'To sustain millions of spiders, ' he writes, 'there must be a corresponding diversity in the food chain, and healthy landscape function above and below ground.' Such a healthy landscape, argues the author in considerable detail, cannot come about through what he calls the 'more-on' approach to agriculture, piling chemicals atop increasingly unproductive soil, but instead is the result of a 'regenerative' agriculture that necessarily happens at a small scale. The larger scale is what modern agronomists insist is needed in order to feed a growing world population, but at a cost that may be too great. As Massy observes, a livestock grower will always seek to save the herd before saving the range, no matter how shortsighted that strategy may be in the end. The author's prose can be arid and technical at times, as when he writes, 'at a global level, non-regeneratively grazed livestock emissions are a huge source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.' At others, he sounds like a modern butterflies-are-free avatar of Charles Reich: 'an Emergent mind combines elements of the previous Organic and Mechanical minds, but its true difference is an openness to the ongoing processes of emergence and self-organization.' The circularity aside, Massy's book is a useful small-is-beautiful argument for appropriate-level farming that people can do without massive machines or petrochemical inputs. Though less elegant than Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, he certainly falls into their camp, and their readers will want to know Massy's work as well. A solid case for taking better care of the ground on which we stand."



"Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, [this] book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it."--The Guardian



"Charles Massy has written a definitive masterpiece that takes its place along with the writings of Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Masanobu Fukuoka, Humberto Maturana, and Michael Pollan. No work has more brilliantly defined regenerative agriculture and the breadth of its restorative impact upon human health, biodiversity, climate, and ecological intelligence. There is profound insight here, realized by thirty-five years of farming on the ancient, fragile soils of the Australian continent, discernment expressed with exquisite clarity, seasoned wisdom, and some breathtaking prose of poetic elegance. I believe it takes its place as the single most important book on agriculture today, one that will become a classic text."--Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest; editor of Drawdown



"I first met Charles Massy in 2015 when he visited the ranch of the Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe. Building on the work of many people, Massy has now written a compelling and comprehensive book on the importance of management being holistic--and how that will ultimately lead to a regenerative agriculture capable of restoring even the most degraded ecosystems and marginalized land in any climate and at any scale. He has done this with wonderful stories that take us on a journey of ecological literacy, supported by evocative insights into landscapes, science, and practical farming and living. Call of the Reed Warbler is a massive accomplishment and contribution to our collective work of building a new agriculture, a new Earth, and renewed human society and health."--Allan Savory, president of the Savory Institute



"This book will change the way you think about food, farming, and the place of humans on the planet. Introducing us to leaders of the regenerative agriculture movement, Massy offers real hope that we may yet fashion a society that gives more than it takes."--Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground; lecturer, School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University



"Conceptually rich and filled with examples of diverse innovators, Call of the Reed Warbler is the most comprehensive and engaging book I've read on regenerative agriculture. Charlie Massy contends humans have morphed from an 'Organic mind' into a 'Mechanical mind, ' which is now evolving into an 'Emergent mind'--a change in consciousness that embraces self-organizing processes. He shows how the minds of the innovators in his book were opened to three key processes: First, they began to understand how landscapes function, how ecological system work, and how they are indivisibly connected. Second, they got out of the way to let nature repair, self-organize, and regenerate these functions. Third, they had the humility to 'listen to their land, ' change, and continue to learn with that same openness. Massy concludes we can heal Earth, but only by transforming ourselves and our connections with the landscapes and communities in which we live. This book is a thoughtful step in that direction."--Fred Provenza, professor emeritus, Department of Wildland Resources, Utah State University; author of Nourishment



"Charles Massy is a leader in the regenerative agriculture movement in Australia with a message of hope for everyone. Using his arid homeland as a touchstone, Massy thoughtfully counterbalances the damage done by industrial agriculture to our land and our prospects with evocative examples from around the world of a hopeful way forward. His beliefs are grounded in practical experience, his vision clear, and his words inspiring. Call of the Reed Warbler is a must-read!"--Courtney White, author of Grass, Soil, Hope



"Call of the Reed Warbler not only heralds the sound of an ecosystem functioning but also of a world awakening to regenerative agriculture. Charlie Massy is Australia's equivalent to Thoreau and Leopold and a practical regenerative farmer to boot. I can't think of anyone better equipped to pen a book like this, and to do so with such scholarship, integrity, and rollicking prose is a credit to Charlie and those whose journey he's portrayed. Easily my 'Book of the Year.'"--Darren J. Doherty, founder, Regrarians Limited



Booklist--

"In the last few decades, a growing movement toward pesticide and GMO-free farming practices has been blossoming throughout the world as a counterbalance to corporate-driven agribusinesses. Piggybacking on terms like sustainability and permaculture, veteran sheepherder and author Massy refers to these environmentally friendly methods as "regenerative agriculture," and he offers inspiring testimony here on how he and many of his fellow food-growing Australians have transformed their farmlands by respecting the native ecosystems that surround them. In three richly informative sections, Massy recounts the background story of how aboriginal sustainable land use eventually gave way to what he calls mechanical agriculture practices; demonstrates how balancing five landscape functions, such as solar energy and water cycles, can revitalize the soil; and gives abundant examples of Aussie farmers, including himself, using these practices with great success....[Massy's] message about the dire need for sustainability is one that all readers concerned about food and the environment should closely heed."

Book Description
Is it too late to regenerate the earth? Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our Australian landscape and our planet.

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Jim Higgins
5.0 out of 5 starsA vision of what can be10 September 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Charles Massy has written a story that captures the essence of what is required to face our future with confidence and hope. This is not just a message for farming and how we can regenerate the health of land, it is a message for all on how we can build a healthy future by collaboration with each other and cooperation with the life sustaining energies of Mother Earth. Thank you, Charles, I hope more will come to share your vision.


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Mr. William H. Gore
3.0 out of 5 starsThe ideas are great, but the lack of doubt concerns me6 June 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Needed editing. it was too long for me. The ideas are great, but the lack of doubt concerns me. i am no expert.


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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat book by someone with a wealth of knowledge and understanding experience28 July 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Loved this book and all the insights into how regenerative agriculture is playing out across Australia. Very inspiring read.


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DS
5.0 out of 5 starsImportant book6 December 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent analysis of the subject


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Retrac
3.0 out of 5 starsPassionate but narrow view of Agriculture's Future14 May 2018
Format: Kindle Edition

Charles Massy’s book looks impressive and includes some great stories- parables about how things should be done. It is a compilation of case studies that promotes pesticide and fertiliser free; low input - low output agriculture. Lacking in data but full of emotional responses to the larger agricultural industries in Australia.

It is a good overview of current alternative agricultural thinking- promoting a suite of non- mainstream ideology based approaches to agriculture.

The thesis is well developed but dismisses mainstream agriculture without much data. Are the other 95% of our farmers that bad? Massey portrayed farmers who replace nutrients exported in commodities with fertiliser and those who use phosphorus fertiliser to boost legumes as bad. He highlights examples of people who have adopted low input approaches- but there is no economic data.

Buy the book to see alternative views, but don’t buy it as a guide to how to farm or develop farm policy.

3 people found this helpful

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Martin Kerr
5.0 out of 5 starsHe can survive and prosper as he and many other farmers like him have shown8 March 2018
Format: Kindle Edition

March 8, 2018
Martin Kerr

A call to arms

Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture on Earth
By Charles Massy
University of Queensland Press 2017, 569pp

Charles Massy has learned the hard way; off a hard farm, working sheep, pastures, laying fences, studying agriculture, earning a living and raising a family. His early interests were birds, birds he rarely saw and birds who re-established themselves such as the reed warbler first described on a farm in the upper Hunter Valley. Peter Andrews a friend of entrepreneur Gerry Harvey had filled his creek with logs and sometimes car tyres, to slow the flow of water. Water spread its benefits into the surrounding farmland, brought back birds and insects and regenerated his horse breeding property. I watched a TV documentary about Andrews’ efforts and was impressed. So were a few academics and scientists. Likewise, Charles Massy called on many specialists for assistance but remained grounded in the idea of the self-rectifying and balancing forces of nature.
Spun out of his PhD at ANU, Call of the Reed Warbler is a more than a Henry David Thoreau (Walden, 1854), a Tim Flannery (The Future Eaters,1994), a Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel, 1997, Collapse, 2005) or more recently, a Bill Gammage (The Biggest Estate on Earth, 2011). Charles Massy combines trial and error, insight, research, deep thinking, creativity, connectedness to nature; investigating farm management in all its forms. His thinking is based essentially on managing pasture and its surrounds through the use of grazing animals. Regeneration of degraded (often salt affected) land is proved possible time and time again, in Africa, Europe, North America, New Zealand and Australia.
What is more, regenerative agriculture captures more carbon and requires less manufactured inputs – insecticides and herbicides. Output may be less, but quality and taste in meat, grains, pulses and root crops potentially improves the health of its consumers.
This book must be a standard text for anyone interested in agriculture, regeneration of landscape, forestry and seeking to eat herbicide and insecticide free food.
If Massy is a greenie then he is truly entitled to this term. He’s putting something back into the world as we know it. He can survive and prosper as he and many other farmers like him have shown. He shows that industrial agriculture in some cases has adapted to similar researches and investigations. New (once traditional) grazing techniques require the constant moving of stock to fresh pasture to avoid clear foraging. Grass growth is thereby encouraged with the help of cloven feet and manure. In the case of Australia native grasses re-appear recognising Aboriginal fire stick regeneration. Settler pastoralists lived off the sheep’s back but only for a time; depriving soils of moisture and their biological and mineral balance.
Dr Massy is hard on companies such as Monsanto. He’s sent farm advisers peddling new seeds, manufactured fertilisers, insecticides and insidious glyphosate on their way. He pauses from time to time to assay his land, consider his family and his responsibilities. Here is a working farmer who to survive has to make decisions, more often not making them. Nature over many years plays its role given the co-generative benefits of variety – water, sun, animals and its vast biome in the guts and soil.
Science and the ‘Mechanical Mind’ led to high yields at the expense of the health qualities of product and the land long term. Massy demonstrates through five functions the re-generation of landscapes. But transforming the earth means transforming ourselves. A new holistic psychology is required. A sick mind leads to bad decisions. Unrewarding farm land leads to depression and worse. Charles Massy experienced the worst at a very young age. His book with its beautiful descriptions and balanced awareness, backed up by extensive reading lists and endnotes is a more than a text book. It’s a grand feat of creativity infused with practical and principled observations.

Martin Kerr’s New Guinea Patrol was first published in 1973. His cult memoir, short stories and seven novels are available on Kindle.
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Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba (Contemporary Cuba): Sinan Koont: 9780813054032: Amazon.com: Books

Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba (Contemporary Cuba): Sinan Koont: 9780813054032: Amazon.com: Books

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“Pushed by necessity but enabled by its existing social and educational policies, Cuba in the 1990s launched the most extensive program of urban sustainable agriculture in the world. This study is to date the only book-length investigation in either English or Spanish of this important national experiment in transforming the environmental, economic, and social nature of today’s dominant system of producing food.”—Al Campbell, University of Utah

As large-scale industrial agriculture comes under increasing scrutiny because of its petroleum- and petrochemical-based input costs and environmentally objectionable consequences, increasing attention has been focused on sustainable, local, and agro-ecological techniques in food production. Cuba was forced by historical circumstances to be one of the pioneers in the massive application of these techniques.
 

After the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba was left without access to external support needed to carry on with industrial agriculture. The economic crisis led the country to reconsider their former models of resource management. Cuba retooled its agricultural programs to focus on urban agriculture—sustainable, ecologically sound farming close to densely populated areas. Food now takes far less time to get to the people, who are now better nourished because they have easier access to whole foods. Moreover, urban farming has become a source of national pride—Cuba has one of the best urban agriculture programs in the world, with a thousand-fold increase in urban agricultural output since 1994.
 

Sinan Koont has spent the last several years researching urban agriculture in Cuba, including field work at many sustainable farms on the island. He tells the story of why and how Cuba was able to turn to urban food production on a large scale with minimal use of chemicals, petroleum, and machinery, and of the successes it achieved—along with the continuing difficulties it still faces in reducing its need for food imports.

Sinan Koont is associate professor of economics at Dickinson College.

A volume in the series Contemporary Cuba, edited by John M. Kirk

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Product details

Series: Contemporary Cuba

Paperback: 254 pages
Publisher: University Press of Florida; Reprint edition (January 17, 2017)

2 customer reviews
3.3 out of 5 stars
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converger
2.0 out of 5 starsAn extraordinary missed opportunitySeptember 21, 2015
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A lovely if densely academic narrative about one of the poster children for sustainable, large scale, grassroots urban food production.

Otherwise, pretty much useless. I was looking for real, quantifiable, longitudinal data about what, exactly, has been accomplished. How has this changed food availability and/or quality in Havana and elsewhere? What would be everyone's food situation be if this remarkable phenomenon had never happened?How much food gets produced? What kind? What percentage of nutritional requirements are being met, for how many people? What is the seasonal flow of food and nutritional support? Is there any infrastructure for transporting food beyond neighborhoods? Is there any infrastructure for preserving food, or is it all fresh food only? How much acreage is being cultivated? What's the size distribution of garden plots? How much fertilizer goes into producing food, and what kind? Are garden soils being built up, or depleted? How is everything distributed? If money changes hands, how much do things cost, and what percentage of available income is going to buy this food? How many people do the gardening, transport, and distribution? What is the total labor input for each step in the value chain? By conventional standards, what does the cost-benefit ratio look like? Assuming that it's not great by conventional standards, what other quantifiable benefits does this phenomenon provide? Will it survive the coming transition to a capitalist economy? What has been learned from this inspiring example of urban food that can be replicated and scaled elsewhere? Nobody has really tried to answer, or even ask any of these questions (at least not outside of Cuba). This book doesn't either.

The utter failure of this dense academic text to offer any useful results, combined with its atrocious writing style (not unusually so for an academic text) and ridiculous cost makes this book a poor choice for any serious researcher. That said, there's not much in English, good or bad, about this extraordinary story. Even an awful book is probably better than nothing.
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Walter D. Teague
5.0 out of 5 starsAnother important book censored by price.April 23, 2013
Format: Hardcover

I would love to read this book, more than the few free pages shown above. But even at the "savings" of $67.46, I will defer until it comes to a library near me. Oops, that isn't going to happen what with austerity and continuing US opposition to anything good said about Cuba.

This outrageous price, $75 retail, is another example of the old British tradition of censorship by price. I read somewhere that for a long time the British kept the masses safe from dangerous liberating knowledge by printing serious works in hardcover which the plebes couldn't afford. In the US today, some of the best research and scholarly works continue to be published in limited circulation (by exorbitant price) academic journals. And not only do they keep their information safe from the eyes of the rabble, but they make sure the world processor files or God forbid PDF versions, safely locked up behind copy-write laws.

Don't believe there is a de facto conspiracy to keep complex facts from the public discourse? Go Google this subject and read the vast number of ill-informed and irrational comments on the subject of Cuba on web pages across the internet.

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The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities - Kindle edition by Didi Pershouse, Peter Donovan. Professional & Technical Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities - Kindle edition by Didi Pershouse, Peter Donovan. Professional & Technical Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.



What can Cuban doctors, innovative ranchers in Saskatchewan, and the microbiome teach us about how to care for people and the Earth at the same time?


In this richly layered book, Didi Pershouse takes us on a fast-moving, sharp-witted journey through her own life: from growing up with the neurosurgeon who accidentally discovered the seat of memory in the brain, to working in a smoke-filled office at New York magazine, to her career as an innovative acupuncturist in Vermont, and on to a passion for close-knit communities, grazing cows, and soil restoration as solutions to much of what ails us.

Along the way, she unfolds a surprising new take on the story of our time: how the germ theory of disease joined with a profit-based economy, and unwittingly led to a “sterilization” of medicine, agriculture, and even our social lives. This 150-year detour has brought about the near destruction of our climate as well as a great forgetting of the power of connection.

By documenting a scientific understanding of the intelligence of the whole, Pershouse nudges us awake with a hopeful view and shows us how to reclaim the rich, “fertile” lives we are meant for.
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4.9 out of 5 stars 38 customer reviews

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File Size: 7240 KB
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Publication Date: April 8, 2017


38 customer reviews
4.9 out of 5 stars
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Showing 1-8 of 38 reviews
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Adam D. Sacks
5.0 out of 5 starsAn elixir for the modern ills of body, mind and spirit . . .February 5, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Didi Pershouse is a healer living and practicing in a cozy small community in rural Vermont, surrounded by the natural world and its eloquent teachings. She uses acupuncture, herbs, the aromas from the kitchen in her home/office, the community at large, the biodiverse landscape around her - and perhaps most importantly her warm listening ear - as her trove of therapeutic modalities.

Reading The Ecology of Care is like sitting in Didi's living room having a chat and a cup of tea. Her friendly, articulate and flowing writing style invites you into her panoramic overview of our health dilemmas, personal and planetary. She addresses painful subjects gently and compassionately and offers long-forgotten alternatives that are as old as the human race. She takes on the daunting task of connecting all the pieces in our fractured modern puzzle to emerge with an ecology of health that connects our frontal lobes to our gut microbes to the air we breathe, the food we eat and the places we walk. Then she travels the dots to global warming, soils, and regenerating our life-support systems. Everything is truly, literally, connected to everything else. Our health is no different.

As she says about hunter-gatherer healing, "It's not the list of plants that one needs, nor even the list of illnesses that each plant treats - it's the living, ongoing relationships between the practitioner, the herbs, the patient, and the landscape that form a whole system of indigenous health care." Didi has woven a story of how we can re-connect to our ancient ways of health, including the health of Mother Earth.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have the good fortune of knowing Didi personally as a colleague in restoring ecosystems, and as a trained naturopathic physician I deeply appreciate her essential community healing perspective that is so often missing in the offices of medical "professionals" - including alternative practitioners who would like to do better but don't quite know how. The Ecology of Care is a thoughtful and heartfelt roadmap for our perilous times.
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Carol Song
5.0 out of 5 starsHow to walk the earth.July 27, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

So many superlatives come to mind that it is hard to settle my mind enough, to a place where it is plausible. Make no mistake. Didi saves lives and her work is non-stop and her heart is the size of Kansas. A recipe for the evolution of our way of living is absolutely necessary for us all. For those who live in cities and suburbs, it may be hard to imagine her clinic. Sitting in a comfortable chair and having acupuncture, her little doggie in your lap, and fresh vegetables from her garden when you leave is healing on so many levels. She took my hand and held me in her arms when I wept after getting a terrible cancer diagnosis. Western medicine gave me a 10% chance. Didi helped me find a 100% chance. To care about dirt, air, hearts, food sources and spirit is the walk I have chosen. This book is a wonderful how to and a whole lot of why. I would love to see this book go into every medical school in the world. Thank you Didi, for your hard work and care for so many people, and for sharing your wisdom for all to read.

4 people found this helpful

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Timothy ODell
5.0 out of 5 starsthe prose is nicely poetic at turns - worth looking forMarch 10, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Draws on a practitioner and citizen scientist's life experience and work to provide an integrated vision of health care, food, agriculture and climate - what they are and what they could be. If you do not yet see how all of these matters intersect, this is for you. And oh, the prose is nicely poetic at turns - worth looking for. This could become to human and environmental health what "A Sand County Almanac" is to environmentalism. Remember what Luther started with "95 Theses?" Read and consider. Carefully documented, like a scholarly publication, yet written for a a popular readership. You'll like it.

4 people found this helpful

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Michelle N
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Impactful Read!September 4, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I judge an impactful writer by my ability to retain what I read much after I have finished reading the last page. This book is so filled with knowledge, history, and an understanding of the whole picture, that it is constantly lingering in the background for me. Didi engages at first with her own personal story, one that so many of us can relate to when life isn't going so well. Then she weaves in her life discoveries, with factual history, and an insightful look at what we do on a daily basis, unexamined. A wholistic view of living on this planet. I have recommened it not only to my own accupucturist, but to others in the medical field as well. Kudos Didi, with a big thanks for walking the talk!

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Yoyo
5.0 out of 5 starsRead it and share it with as many as you can!March 15, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Pershouse's book is a timely look at health care in our country seen in comparison to the state of our world and the health of the earth as a whole. It is full of hopeful ideas that we must urgently move towards implementing to save ourselves as well as our environment--it is not to late, but we must take action. This is an important work, with eye opening tales and we will all be better for reading it.

2 people found this helpful

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Swami Asokananda
5.0 out of 5 starsInsightful, devasting, and hopefulOctober 6, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Have your hi-lighter at hand! There are so many eye-opening gems in this book. From Ms. Pershouse’s stories about her grandfather’s specialty of performing lobotomies to her profound insight to how everything is connected (from the soil to bacteria in our intestinal tract), I found this book guiding me on a journey to see my life and world more clearly. Seeing clearly means recognizing the troubled state of affairs we find ourselves in, and then seeing a way out of this mess. Didi has done her homework very well, and leaves us with confidence that healing is within our hands.

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Monica Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 starswhat will our future look like and will we even like that futureMarch 29, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is an important addition to the ongoing discussion on what to do about Climate Change, what will our future look like and will we even like that future. Pershouse provides an indepth view of what problems are facing our existing healthcare structure and rather than just leave us in the doom and gloom provides suggestions on possible ways to move forward beyond the problems. A great read and a book I will certainly read again... and possibly a few more times beyond that. Looking forward to more by this author! Have given several as gifts to local healthcare professionals and environmentalists.

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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsTimely. easy to read information everyone needs to hear.February 7, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A must read for anyone that cares about their own health, the health of others and the health of the planet. Beautiful written..and effortless read. Buy an extra copy for your healthcare provider.

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Unfinished Puzzle: Cuban Agriculture: The Challenges, Lessons & Opportunities Kindle Edition
by May Ling Chan (Author), Eduardo Francisco Freyre Roach(Author)


4.0 out of 5 stars 1 customer review






Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture From the Ground Up
Carey Clouse
4.2 out of 5 stars 3
Kindle Edition



Product details

File Size: 3341 KB
Print Length: 144 pages
Publisher: Food First Books (January 1, 2013)
Publication Date: January 1, 2013
S

1 customer review

lhnewton
4.0 out of 5 starsGood book on Cuban agricuture.September 15, 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Haven't read all of this book, but it's a very interesting write-up of a report to the Cuban government. 

Eric Holt-
Gimenez has been active in this field from the beginning, and writes the introduction.

2 people found this helpful

알라딘: 내게 무해한 사람

[eBook] 내게 무해한 사람

최은영 (지은이) | 문학동네 | 2018-07-30
공유
URL





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종이책정가 13,500원
전자책정가 9,500원
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ISBN 9788954652681
페이지 수 328쪽 (종이책 기준)
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"<쇼코의 미소> 최은영 소설집"
첫 소설집 <쇼코의 미소>가 소설가 50인이 뽑은 '올해의 소설'로 선정되는 등, 그 시작만으로도 자신이 소설이 필요한 사람들에게 가닿는 데에 성공한 소설가 최은영이 두번째 소설집을 냈다. "마음이 특별히 약해서 쉽게 부서지는 사람"들을 위한 이야기를 쓰고 싶다는 다짐에서, "인간의 어쩔 수 없는 마음, 그 마음으로 바라보며 왔다."는 단단한 다짐으로 이어지기까지, 최은영다운 일곱 편의 이야기가 기다림에 응답한다.

같은 충격을 받은 몸이어도 취약한 부분을 먼저 다치게 된다. 최은영이 들여다보는 곳은 바로 그 취약한 마음의 고리들이다. 최은영의 이야기들이 묘사하는 어떤 감정들을 기억하는 연한 마음들. 헤어지는 순간에도 '시위하듯 우는 것이 아닌' 울음소리를 내던 애인 수이(<그 여름> 中)를 기억하는 이경의 아픔. 너무 나쁘게 생각하지 말라는 친구 모래의 위로를 듣고 "너무 나쁜 사람들을 너무 나쁘다고 하지 그럼 뭐라고 얘기해?"라고 말하며 그런 내가 고의였고, 악의적인 마음을 품었음을 기억하는 마음. (<모래로 지은 집> 中) 미숙했던 지난 날의 한 순간, 그 마음의 흔들림을 최은영은 결코 외면하지 않고 정직하게 바라본다. 내 마음이 지나온 자리를 정확하게 들여다보는 그 용기가 우리의 삶이 지나온 자리를 비로소 긍정할 힘이 되어줄 것이다.
- 소설 MD 김효선 (2018.06.29)







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eBook > 소설/시/희곡 > 한국소설 > 2000년대 이후



최은영 소설집. 진심을 꾹꾹 눌러 담은 문장으로 "인간에 대한 이해가 깊은 소설을 쓰는 작가"(소설가 김연수), "재능 있는 작가의 탄생을 알리는 소설집"(소설가 김영하)이라는 평을 받은 강렬한 데뷔작 <쇼코의 미소> 출간 이후 2년 만에 두번째 소설집을 선보인다.

2016년 12월, 그해 나온 국내외 소설을 대상으로 소설가 50인이 뽑은 '올해의 소설'에 선정되는 등 문단과 독자 모두에게 뜨거운 지지를 받아온 <쇼코의 미소>는 10만 부 돌파라는 경이적인 기록을 세웠다. 신인 작가의 첫 소설집에 대한 대중의 관심은 지금도 여전히 현재진행형이다. 이러한 사실이 작가에게는 커다란 부담으로 작용하기도 했을 터.

한 인터뷰를 통해 "소설이 더 발전하는 건 헛된 기대라고 생각하지만 지금보다 노력은 더 많이 하고 싶어요. (…) 오래 쓰는 작가가 되고 싶어요"라고 밝힌 것처럼, 이 젊은 소설가는 2년 동안 한 계절도 쉬지 않고 꾸준히 소설을 발표하며 자신을 향한 기대와 우려 섞인 시선에 '소설'로써 응답했다. 그렇게 발표한 일곱 편의 중단편소설을 다시 처음부터 끝까지 꼼꼼히 매만지며 퇴고한 결과물이 <내게 무해한 사람>이다.

특정한 시기에 여러 번 듣게 된 노래에는 강력한 인력이 있어 그 노래를 다시 듣는 것만으로도 당시의 기억이 함께 이끌려 나온다. <내게 무해한 사람>에 실린 일곱 편의 작품은 재생 버튼을 누르는 순간 잊고 있던 어떤 풍경을 우리 앞에 선명히 비추는, 한 시기에 우리를 지배했던 그런 노래 같은 소설들이다.





그 여름
601, 602
지나가는 밤
모래로 지은 집
고백
손길
아치디에서

해설│강지희(문학평론가)
끝내 울음을 참는 자의 윤리

작가의 말





첫문장
이경과 수이는 열여덟 여름에 처음 만났다. 시작은 사고였다.

그들은 오래도록 키스했다. 혀와 입술의 맛, 가끔씩 부딪치는 치아의 느낌, 작은 코에서 나오는 달콤한 숨결에 빠져서 시간이 어떻게 흘러가는지조차 인지할 수 없었다. 자신의 몸이라는 것도, ‘나’라는 의식도, 너와 나의 구분도 그 순간에는 의미를 잃었다. 그럴 때 서로의 몸은 차라리 꽃잎과 물결에 가까웠다. 우리는 마시고 내쉬는 숨 그 자체일 뿐이라고 이경은 생각했다. 한없이 상승하면서도 동시에 깊이 추락하는 하나의 숨결이라고. _「그 여름」

네가 아픈 걸 내가 고스란히 느낄 수 있고, 내가 아프면 네가 우는데 어떻게 우리가 다른 사람일 수 있는 거지? 그 착각이 지금의 우리를 이렇게 형편없는 사람들로 만들었는지도 몰라요. _「그 여름」

늘 엄마를 만날 수 있었던 그때의 기다림을 윤희는 아프게 기억했다. 어른이 된 이후의 삶이란 아무리 기다려도 오지 않는 것들을 기다리고 또 기다려야 하는 일이었으니까. 윤희야, 온 마음으로 기뻐하며 그것을 기다린 자신을 반갑게 맞아주고 사랑해주는 것이 아니었으니까. _「지나가는 밤」






지은이 : 최은영
저자파일
최고의 작품 투표
신간알리미 신청


수상 : 2018년 한국일보문학상, 2017년 김준성문학상(21세기문학상, 이수문학상), 2017년 구상문학상 젊은작가상
최근작 : <모르그 디오라마>,<소설 보다 : 가을 2018>,<이효석문학상 수상작품집 2018> … 총 34종 (모두보기)
인터뷰 : 마음의 자리, 소설의 자리 <내게 무해한 사람> 최은영 인터뷰 - 2018.07.04
소개 : 1984년 경기 광명에서 태어나 고려대 국문과에서 공부했다. 2013년 『작가세계』 신인상에 중편소설이 당선되면서 작품활동을 시작했다. 소설집 『쇼코의 미소』가 있다. 허균문학작가상, 김준성문학상, 이해조소설문학상, 제5회, 제8회 젊은작가상을 수상했다.





미숙했던 지난날의 작은 모서리를 쓰다듬는 부드러운 손길

『쇼코의 미소』의 작가 최은영 신작 소설집
2017 젊은작가상 수상작 「그 여름」 수록

진심을 꾹꾹 눌러 담은 문장으로 “인간에 대한 이해가 깊은 소설을 쓰는 작가”(소설가 김연수), “재능 있는 작가의 탄생을 알리는 소설집”(소설가 김영하)이라는 평을 받은 강렬한 데뷔작 『쇼코의 미소』 출간 이후 2년 만에 두번째 소설집을 선보인다. 2016년 12월, 그해 나온 국내외 소설을 대상으로 소설가 50인이 뽑은 ‘올해의 소설’에 선정되는 등 문단과 독자 모두에게 뜨거운 지지를 받아온 『쇼코의 미소』는 10만 부 돌파라는 경이적인 기록을 세웠다. 신인 작가의 첫 소설집에 대한 대중의 관심은 지금도 여전히 현재진행형이다. 이러한 사실이 작가에게는 커다란 부담으로 작용하기도 했을 터. 한 인터뷰를 통해 “소설이 더 발전하는 건 헛된 기대라고 생각하지만 지금보다 노력은 더 많이 하고 싶어요. (…) 오래 쓰는 작가가 되고 싶어요”라고 밝힌 것처럼, 이 젊은 소설가는 2년 동안 한 계절도 쉬지 않고 꾸준히 소설을 발표하며 자신을 향한 기대와 우려 섞인 시선에 ‘소설’로써 응답했다. 그렇게 발표한 일곱 편의 중단편소설을 다시 처음부터 끝까지 꼼꼼히 매만지며 퇴고한 결과물이 『내게 무해한 사람』이다.
특정한 시기에 여러 번 듣게 된 노래에는 강력한 인력이 있어 그 노래를 다시 듣는 것만으로도 당시의 기억이 함께 이끌려 나온다. 『내게 무해한 사람』에 실린 일곱 편의 작품은 재생 버튼을 누르는 순간 잊고 있던 어떤 풍경을 우리 앞에 선명히 비추는, 한 시기에 우리를 지배했던 그런 노래 같은 소설들이다. 그렇게 불려 나온 풍경의 한편에는 시간의 흐름에 따라 자연히 멀어진 사람들―그 시절엔 붙어다니는 게 당연하고 자연스러웠던 친구와 연인, 자매와 친척 들―이 자리해 있고, 다른 한편에는 그런 시간의 흐름에도 마모되지 않은 마음이 박혀 있다. 아니, 더 정확히는 오해와 착각, 독선과 무지로 멀어지게 된 한 시절이 담겨 있다. 최은영은 이 미숙했던 과거를 회상하는 인물들의 내면을 비추며, 그 안에서 거세게 일어났다 잦아드는 마음의 흔들림을 섬세하고 정직하게 써내려간다. 그리고 그들을 통해 우리는, 과거는 완료되는 것이 아니라 현재의 위치에서 끊임없이 재조정되며 다시 살아나는 것임을, 기억을 마주한다는 건 미련이나 나약함에서 비롯되는 것이 아니라 단단한 용기에서 나오는 것임을 알게 될 것이다.

“넌 누구에게도 상처를 주지 않으려 하지.
그리고 그럴 수도 없을 거야. 넌 내게 무해한 사람이구나.”

시간이 흐른 뒤에야 제대로 마주하게 된 그 시절과
시간이 흘러도 사라지지 않고 남아 있는 그때의 마음
그 단단한 시간의 벽을 더듬는 사이 되살아나는
어설프고 위태로웠던 우리의 지난날

이번 소설집의 제목인 ‘내게 무해한 사람’은 “넌 누구에게도 상처를 주지 않으려 하지. 그리고 그럴 수도 없을 거야. 넌 내게 무해한 사람이구나”(「고백」)라는 문장에서 비롯되었다. 고등학생 때 만나 단단한 울타리 안에서 내밀한 감정을 공유하며 가까워진 미주와 진희. 미주는 진희가 타인의 감정에 예민하기 때문에 자신을 포함한 누구에게도 상처를 주지 않을 거라고, 진희가 어떤 사람인지 자신이 잘 알고 있다고 여기며 그 사실에 안도한다. 그러나 이어지는 문장은 이 안도와 행복이 얼마나 허약하고 오만한 인식 위에 세워진 것인지 드러내며 ‘내게 무해한 사람’이라는 제목의 의미를 다른 각도에서 조명한다. “미주의 행복은 진희에 대해 아무것도 알지 못했기 때문에 가능했다. 진희가 어떤 고통을 받고 있었는지 알지 못했으므로 미주는 그 착각의 크기만큼 행복할 수 있었다.”
그 시절 행복할 수 있었던 건 상대의 고통을 외면했기 때문이라는 자각. 지난 시절을 회상하는 인물의 목소리가 쓸쓸하게 들리다가도, 돌연 자기 자신을 몰아치듯 엄정한 태도를 획득하게 되는 건 이 때문이 아닐까. 즉 최은영의 소설에서 인물들이 과거를 불러내는 건 단순히 아름답던 그 시절을 추억하기 위함이 아니다. 시간이 지나고 나서야 깨닫게 된 어떤 진실을 제대로 마주하기 위해서다. 지난 시절을 낭만화하지도, 자기 자신을 손쉽게 용서하지도 않아야 도달할 수 있는 이 깨달음은 이번 소설집 곳곳에서 마주할 수 있다.
소설집의 문을 여는 「그 여름」은 사랑에 빠지기 전의 삶이 가난하게 느껴질 정도로 상대에게 몰두했지만 결국 자신의 욕심과 위선으로 이별하게 된 지난 시절을 뼈아프게 되돌아보고, 「모래로 지은 집」의 화자는 이십대의 한 시절을 공유했지만 끝내 멀어져간 이들과의 이야기를 들려주며, 단순히 시간이 흘렀기 때문에 자연스럽게 헤어지게 된 것이 아니라고, 그 헤어짐의 원인은 자신에게 있을지도 모른다고 고백한다.
그러나 이런 자각 앞에서도 우리는 끝내 따스함을 느끼고 위로를 건네받게 되는데, 그건 우리 모두 한 번은 어설프고 위태로웠던 그 시절을 지나왔기 때문일 것이다. 미숙함 탓에 상처를 주고받기도 했지만, 사람에게서만 받을 수 있는 위로가 있다는 것을, ‘나를 세상에 매달려 있게 해준다는 안심을 주는 존재’ 역시 그 시절 그 사람들이었다는 것을 인정하고 있기 때문일 것이다.

앞으로 함께 성장해나갈,
우리 세대의 소설가를 갖는다는 것

레즈비언 커플의 연애담(「그 여름」), 억압적인 가부장적 분위기 속에서 자라온 두 여자아이의 이야기(「601, 602」), 악착같이 싸우면서, 가끔은 서로를 이해하면서 어린 시절을 보낸 두 자매의 이야기(「지나가는 밤」) 등 『내게 무해한 사람』에는 다양한 관계, 특히 여성들의 관계가 집중적으로 그려져 있다. 여성들의 사랑, 자매간의 애증, 숙모와 조카의 연대 등 여성과 여성이, 또는 여성과 사회가 맺는 다양한 관계의 모습을 통해 우리는 따스하고 섬세한 문장들 사이사이에 가로놓인 여성문제, 계급문제, 억압적인 남성 중심적인 문화의 문제 또한 확인할 수 있다.
너무 뜨겁지도 차갑지도 않은, 사람의 체온과 꼭 같은 온기로, 타인의 고통에도 자신의 감정에도 무감각해진 우리의 마음을 뒤흔들고 끝내 우리를 위로하는 작가 최은영. 『내게 무해한 사람』은 이런 우리에게 필요한 소설가가 등장했음을 보여주는, 앞으로도 우리와 함께 호흡해나갈 젊은 소설가가 존재함을 알려주는 귀중한 사례에 해당할 것이다.