This Land Is Our Land, Jedediah Purdy
This Land Is Our Land, Jedediah Purdy
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This Land Is Our Land
The Struggle for a New Commonwealth

Author: Jedediah Purdy

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 3 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/17/2019


Synopsis

Today, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts over the land itself. But these problems can be solved if we draw on elements of our tradition that move us toward a new commonwealth—a community founded on the well-being of all people and the natural world.

From the coalfields of Appalachia and the tobacco fields of the Carolinas to the public lands of the West, Jedediah Purdy—one of our finest writers and leading environmental thinkers—shows how the land has always united and divided Americans, holding us in common projects and fates but also separating us into insiders and outsiders, owners and dependents, workers and bosses. Expropriated from Native Americans and transformed by slave labor, the same land that represents a history of racism and exploitation could, in the face of environmental catastrophe, bind us together in relationships of reciprocity and mutual responsibility.

This may seem idealistic in our polarized time, but we are at a historical fork in the road, and if we do not make efforts now to move toward a commonwealth, Purdy warns, environmental and political pressures will create harsher and crueler conflicts—between citizens, between countries, and between humans and the rest of the world.

About Jedediah Purdy

Jedediah Purdy is professor of law at Columbia Law School. His books include After Nature, A Tolerable Anarchy, Being America, and For Common Things. He contributes to the New Yorker, the Nation, the New Republic, the Atlantic, n+1, and other magazines. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Robert on October 15, 2019

What made the experience of reading Purdy's essay is acceding to his thought patterns, which are fluid, which give one new perspectives in motion. Sometimes, however, it felt like he was going too far afield, or dwelling too long on one thing that didn’t seem essential to his argument, which interru......more

Goodreads review by Eric on January 15, 2020

I only found the final two chapters The Long Environmental Justice Movement and The Value of Life valuable, but those two are very good and are building toward crucial ideas.......more

Goodreads review by Nils on May 26, 2020

very good primer on environmental thought and law (land use, theory, politics? not really sure what umbrella this falls under!) like other users pointed out, the last two chapters are the best. the chapter on the long environmental justice movement, and reframing the movement in American history was......more

Goodreads review by Erik on August 25, 2020

A thought provoking and beautifully written book, "This Land is Our Land" is worth the price just for its chapter on environmental justice. A huge topic today after the George Floyd protests, Purdy claims that connecting environmental protection to racial and social equity is nothing new, but in fac......more

Goodreads review by Eileen on August 08, 2022

Another book on environmentalism, social justice and activism that doesn't really cover new ground. It talks in broad strokes without a road map of how to reach the New Commonweath.......more