On the Farm with Ariel Ron: the Social Movement that Built a Grassroots Leviathan

Podopticon

Good books will make you think of things they don’t raise explicitly, and what Ariel Ron’s book does for me is it makes me think about the stories we tell ourselves–and what work those stories do.

His book, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic uncovers what turns out to be a social movement of northern farmers who put their stamp on American democracy and American self-image in lasting ways.

The book runs from the lead up of the American Revolution through the Civil War, which I think most readers will find most interesting. Most of us, that is, understand the Civil War as one that pitted the industrial north against the agrarian south; the city against the country. But this wasn’t the case, as Ron shows. And that’s just one way this book got me to thinking about the things we tell ourselves and the work those stories must be doing…