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Sebastian Ritscher
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THE UNSETTLERS

Mark Sundeen

In Search of the Good Life in Today's America

The radical search for the simple life in today’s America.
In the dead of winter, a former marine biologist and his pregnant wife, a classically trained opera singer, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they’ve purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, in Detroit, a horticulturist, daughter of the city and descendant of Mississippi sharecroppers, and her husband, a disillusioned public school teacher, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically.

More than ever, we seem to be yearning for “the simple life.” We want to reconnect with the land and the environment in a deeper way that can assuage modern ills. We seek a livelihood that exercises body and mind without taking a toll on the planet. We long to nurture spirit and community instead of distracting and isolating ourselves with electronics. We even dream utopian dreams of discovering ways of life that model for others answers to the question of how we can live more sustainably, peacefully, authentically.

A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life not only through the stories of those three very different couples, but through the visionaries, ascetics, and artists that inspired each of them to walk away from the life they knew in order to find (or create) a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

Mark Sundeen is the author of several books, including The Man Who Quit Money and the coauthor of North by Northwestern, which was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He has taught fiction and nonfiction in the MFA creative writing programs at the University of New Mexico and Southern New Hampshire University. He and his wife divide their time between Fort Collins, Colorado, and Moab, Utah.
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Published 2017-01-10 by Riverhead Books

Book

Published 2017-01-10 by Riverhead Books

Comments

Sundeen deepens his analysis by including economic data, historical perspective and literary references. Readers will hear not only from the expected writers like Wendell Berry but also from economist E. F. Schumacher and activist MalcolmX. Context is everything in this carefully and affectionately reported account of idealists working not to leave the real world behind, but to make it better. Read more...

If We’re Going To Change The World, Living Off The Grid Isn’t Enough A new book features three families showing how to resist an establishment that seems bent on ruining the world. Read more...

With his chronicles of modern-day American visionaries and iconoclasts who have opted out of the mainstream culture, I’ve come to think of Mark Sundeen as our poet laureate of a new era of alternative lifestyles.

Japan: NHK Publishing

You say you want a revolution? These stories of “unsettlers” striving to lead more simple lives are an inspiration as well as a dose of reality on how difficult that can be. This is an important book.

A fascinating, timely, and deeply personal examination of what it means to be a non-conformist in the modern age.

The Unsettlers combines impeccable research, fierce reasoning, philosophical depth, narrative pull, and the subliminal magic of some wondrous old myth to take the measure of the tragedy of our time--our betrayed and broken yearning for a living, thriving earth—and to capture the poignancy of six heroes and heroines who, against all odds, pit themselves against the killing machines.

From a crop of orphaned garlic plants in Detroit to a tipi birth in Montana, Mark Sundeen’s The Unsettlers is rigorously reported and utterly enthralling. With candor, wit, and live-voltage curiosity, Sundeen profiles pioneers who have developed better ways to live in our overdeveloped world. The Unsettlers isn’t in the business of guilt or shame mongering, but it will certainly—if you have a pulse and a laptop, or even an electrical socket—make you question how you live in the world as well.

From Tiny Houses to “off the grid” reality shows, the simple life/back to the land movement is gaining serious traction in the US. I find it fascinating, as someone who both loves independence and hates being dirty, and this social history of the modern movement for simplicity in American life is right up my alley.

A column about the changes to come in the White House recommending three books that “offer past, present and possible future views of the country.” THE UNSETTLERS is on this urgent shortlist, recommended as the perfect pick “if talk of politics makes you pine for a life away from Twitter and cable news and the rest.” Read more...

Provocative reading for anyone who has ever yearned for a life of radical simplicity. Read more...

[Sundeen] relays the homesteaders’ stories with fierce curiosity and empathy, which makes The Unsettlersan enlightening read: the book resonates because Sundeen lets these eccentrics and their lifestyles speak for themselves. It’s exceptional reporting on a topic that we’d all be wise to familiarize ourselves with, especially in the shadow of an indefatigably evil administration.