Working the Garden: American Writers and the Industrialization of Agriculture

Conlogue offers fresh perspectives on how writers confront issues whose site is the farm but whose impact reaches every corner of American society. His readings of works by Willa Cather, Ruth Comfort Mitchell, John Steinbeck, Luis Valdez, Ernest Gaines, Jane Smiley, Wendell Berry, and others reveal that, through agricultural narratives, authors have addressed such wide-ranging subjects as the impact of technology on people and land, changing gender roles, environmental destruction, and the exploitation of migrant workers.