In their differences, Wendell Berry's Recollected Essays and The Gift of Good Land balance each other nicely. The first, a selection of descriptive and reflective essays drawn from five previously published books, presents the major themes of his thought as it has developed over the years (1965–1980). It is essentially a personal book … though the reflective pieces go far beyond the personal. The second is a collection of articles written since the publication of The Unsettling of America in 1977. These are more directly concerned with farming, and take us outside of Mr. Berry's native Kentucky to Pennsylvania, the Midwest, the Southwest, and as far as Peru, studying a variety of techniques, tools, and crops, their propriety or impropriety in relation to the land and the people who live on it. (p. 341)

The value of Mr. Berry's work, and the basis of his polemic with the dominant mentality and methodology...