This manifesto for the next food revolution by acclaimed environmental historian Kate Brown speaks to nature lovers, food activists, social-justice warriors, urban planners, WOOFers, and the climate-concerned.
Ever since wage labor in cities replaced self-provisioning in the countryside, gardeners have reclaimed lost commons on urban lots. They composted garbage into topsoil, creating the most productive agriculture in recorded human history, without use of fossil fuels. The ecological diversity they fostered made room for human difference and built prosperity, too: in Nazi Berlin, working-class gardeners harbored dissidents and Jews; in Washington, DC, Black southern migrants built communities around gardens and orchards, the produce funding homeownership.
Grafting contemporary experience and concerns onto every historical chapter, Brown creates a mesmerizing hybrid past and present, archive and experience, showing how down-to-earth gardeners can reap abundant harvests while fostering mutual aid and political engagement.
Nurturing health, hope, and community, gardeners in cities and suburbs are reclaiming lost commons, transforming vacant lots into vibrant plots, turning waste into compost, and recreating what was once the most productive agriculture in recorded human history.
In a history that has been hidden in plain sight, working-class gardeners have consistently played an outsized role. In London, they devised ways to feed themselves when wage labor fell short. In Paris, a superabundance of horse manure in the streets nourished urban gardens that fed two million residents. In Berlin, gardeners built social safety nets for those marginalized by the state. In Washington, DC, African American migrants brought rural traditions of self-provisioning that were later disrupted by "urban renewal." In rustbelt Mansfield, Ohio, farming ex-cons grow hope for the city's future. In post-Soviet Estonia, shared gardens became lifelines for survival amid economic upheaval. And in Amsterdam, activists are reclaiming sustainable farming practices in a sinking landscape oversaturated with fertilizers.
Tilled into this rich history of urban agriculture is an inspiring layer of contemporary activism. Each chapter includes contemporary stories of people from all walks of life who, in their gardens, are continuing a great tradition of mutual aid, political resistance, and bold experiments in sustainability.
A manifesto for the next food revolution, Tiny Gardens Everywhere blends past and present, archive and experience, to offer a truly inspiring vision of the transformative potential of gardening and urban life.
Nurturing health, hope, and community, gardeners in cities and suburbs are reclaiming lost commons, transforming vacant lots into vibrant plots, turning waste into compost, and recreating what was once the most productive agriculture in recorded human history.
In a history that has been hidden in plain sight, working-class gardeners have consistently played an outsized role. In London, they devised ways to feed themselves when wage labor fell short. In Paris, a superabundance of horse manure in the streets nourished urban gardens that fed two million residents. In Berlin, gardeners built social safety nets for those marginalized by the state. In Washington, DC, African American migrants brought rural traditions of self-provisioning that were later disrupted by "urban renewal." In rustbelt Mansfield, Ohio, farming ex-cons grow hope for the city's future. In post-Soviet Estonia, shared gardens became lifelines for survival amid economic upheaval. And in Amsterdam, activists are reclaiming sustainable farming practices in a sinking landscape oversaturated with fertilizers.
Tilled into this rich history of urban agriculture is an inspiring layer of contemporary activism. Each chapter includes contemporary stories of people from all walks of life who, in their gardens, are continuing a great tradition of mutual aid, political resistance, and bold experiments in sustainability.
A manifesto for the next food revolution, Tiny Gardens Everywhere blends past and present, archive and experience, to offer a truly inspiring vision of the transformative potential of gardening and urban life.
![Zoë Bakes Cookies: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Cookies and Bars [A Baking Book] by Zoe Francois](/sites/rizzolibookstore.com/files/styles/medium/public/timberImage/97/9781984860804.jpg?itok=Vt7WAVXg "Zoë Bakes Cookies: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Cookies and Bars [A Baking Book] by Zoe Francois")
