Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn

Localism in the Mass Age

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“If each of these essays is a gem—and it is—then coming upon them all in one place is what it must feel like to come upon a streak of emerald in a layer of shale. To find them embedded in one place, in a manifesto that is a paean to place itself, is a sight, and a site, for hope. Singly, they bring us—with equal parts humor, humility, and gravitas—to new vantage points from which to glimpse tantalizing glints of an alternative to today’s creed of greed and gain. Together, they construct a non-military equivalent of a phalanx—with equal parts criticism, common sense, and ideals—against destruction of the particular local places and bonds that give us our lives. Only such patient words and intricately argued bridge-building can help us withstand the ravages of expansion without limits, exploitation without renewal, and social and political polarization without thoughts of perpetuity.”