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Foodtopia: Communities in Pursuit of Peace, Love, & Homegrown Food 

by Margot Anne Kelley 

 

Throughout America’s history as an industrial nation, sizable countercultural movements have chosen to forgo modern comforts in pursuit of a simpler life. In this illuminating alternative American history, Margot Anne Kelley details the evolution of food-centric utopian movements that were fueled by deep yearnings for unpolluted water and air, racial and gender equality, for peace, for a less consumerist lifestyle, for a sense of authenticity, for simplicity, for a healthy diet, and for a sustaining connection to the natural world.

Millennials who jettisoned cities for rural life form the core of America’s current back-to-the-land movement. These young farmers helped meet surges in supplies for food when COVID-19 ravaged lives and economies, and laid bare limitations in America’s industrial food supply chain. Their forebears were the utopians of the 1840s, including Thoreau and his fellow Transcendental friends who created Brook Farm and Fruitlands; the single taxers and “little landers” who created self-sufficient communities at the turn of the last century; Scott and Helen Nearing and others who decamped to the countryside during the Great Depression; and, of course, the hippie back-to-the-landers of the 1970s.

Foodtopia

$28.95Price

    4128 NE Sandy Blvd Portland,OR - 503.384.2473 - viviennepdx@gmail.com

    Thursday-Monday 11am-6pm - Secret Bar at Noon 

     PORTLAND'S CULINARY BOOKSTORE

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    Vivienne is Portland's independent, woman-owned cookbook store. We also carry kitchenwares,linens, + natural wine.

     

    We host a wine bar daily, book and kitchenware consignment, cookbook classes, private parties, and more.

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