Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back [Paperback]

Eleanor Agnew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2005

When Eleanor Agnew, her husband, and two young children moved to the Maine woods in 1975, the back-to-the-land movement had already attracted untold numbers of converts who had grown increasingly estranged from mainstream American society. Visionaries by the millions were moving into woods, mountains, orchards, and farmlands in order to disconnect from the supposedly deleterious influences of modern life. Fed up with capitalism, TV, Washington politics, and 9-to-5 jobs, they took up residence in log cabins, A-frames, tents, old schoolhouses, and run-down farmhouses; grew their own crops; hauled water from wells; avoided doctors in favor of natural cures; and renounced energy-guzzling appliances. This is their story, in all its glories and agonies, its triumphs and disasters (many of them richly amusing), told by a woman who experienced the simple life firsthand but has also read widely and interviewed scores of people who went back to the land. Ms. Agnew tells how they found joy and camaraderie, studied their issues of Mother Earth News, coped with frozen laundry and grinding poverty, and persevered or gave up. Most of them, it turns out, came back from freedom and self-sufficiency, either by returning to urban life or by dressing up their primitive rural existence—but they held onto the values they gained during their back-to-the-land experience. Back from the Land is filled with juicy details and inspired with a naïve idealism, but the attraction of the life it describes is undeniable. Here is a book to delight those who remember how it was, those who still kick themselves for not taking the chance, and those of a new generation who are just now thinking about it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this informative account of the young idealists who sought oneness with the land in the 1970s, Agnew, who, with her husband, Kent, created a homestead in Troy, Maine, examines the beauty and the danger of living so close to nature. Full of interviews with other homesteaders and commune builders, and research from old editions of Mother Earth News, this account finds many intriguing ironies: It was "the strong post-WWII economy in the United States... [that] allowed us to drop out." Their chosen frugality brought people together, and Agnew reports that most back-to-the-landers, even those who left, have fond memories of potluck dinners, warm wood stoves and the moon shining on the snow. Community, however, clashed with strong individualism: "We back-to-the-landers clearly identified with the ethos of the Old West" and transcendentalism, and the strain of embracing these conflicting powerful American currents took its toll (e.g., peace-loving counterculture youths had trouble slaughtering pigs and turkeys). Some of the best writing is from Agnew's own memories: one turning point came when she spent an afternoon in the kitchen only to produce half a jar of ketchup. Like many others, the Agnews returned to the mainstream with a wiser sense of balance, which is reflected in this intriguing study.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

During the 1970s, more than one million disillusioned Americans renounced urban life and headed to the wilderness. In 1975, Agnew and her husband left a comfortable Massachusetts home and moved to rural Maine, where they built a wood-heated log cabin and tried to live self-sufficiently on the land. In this well-researched, intimate account, Agnew combines her own story with other first-person narratives and nicely integrated commentary that put the experiences into a cultural context. In chapters that follow homesteaders to the farms and then back to civilization, Agnew offers a balanced, critical view that conveys both the profound rewards as well as the stresses that the "simple life" brought: the back-breaking work, the nearly universal poverty, the painful naivete, and the broken marriages, including Agnew's own. Many contemporary readers will also notice striking echoes between the state of the world in the 1970s and today. Also suggest Wild Child (1999), an anthology of writing by women raised in 1970s counterculture families, which includes back-to-the-land experiences from the kids' viewpoints. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (July 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566636647
• ISBN-13: 978-1566636643
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,138,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but left me wanting more, October 6, 2004

By 

chintz22 (Newburyport, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back (Hardcover)

I enjoyed reading Back from the Land : How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back. It is a quick read, mainly stories of the experiences of the author and her friends who were lured to live "the simple life" "off the grid" in the country. Many references are made to how easy Mother Earth magazine made it seem to drop out; a simile might be drawn that says Mother Earth magazine is to back to the landers as Lansford Hastings' The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California was to the Donner Party-both documents were oversimplified and omitted many important details to the sorrow of those that used them as a guide. The book is frequently laugh out loud funny when describing the attempts of city folk to adapt to country life. I especially liked the chapters that outlined how the "back to the landers" dealt with their unexpected poverty. I only wish that experience had given more of them impetus to fight poverty for all rather than just escape it themselves. I wanted the author would have included stories from a broader range of people, and to give communes a separate section in the book rather than combining those experiences with the stories of families who lived independently in the country. Another topic that isn't adequately dealt with is feminism (or lack thereof) amongst the people who chose this lifestyle. The author makes several references to having to do all the traditionally feminine tasks without help from her husband and being bitter about that. Why didn't she ask for help? Was it easier to fall into sex role stereotypes in this situation? I wanted to know more about this topic. The book also wraps up too quickly and doesn't explore why people left the land and how they assimilated back into society in the depth that I wished for. Still, a worthwhile read.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars back from the land and happy about it, January 1, 2005

By 

christy (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back (Hardcover)

I was one of the people who lived this type of life in the mountains...and although it certainly did give me a strength in character and greater empathy for others, I left it behind too. It was hard even if you had running water and electricity. Still, the experience does lodge in the memory and you are never really happy in the city or suburbs once you have lived on a large piece of quiet land. I highly recommend this book to anyone with that rural dream, or readers interested in women's history or that time in our country.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest, June 25, 2006

By 

Chris A. Cunningham - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s, and Why They Came Back (Hardcover)

One of the better books by former Hippies about the 60's and 70's. Well written and insightful. If you are really interested in the back to the land phenomenon and what it was really like this is highly recommended. If you want a light, "and then we all got stoned" sort of retrospective this will be too analytical but still interesting.