When people, land, and community are as one, all members prosper. When regarded as competing agents, all suffer. These authors show what we must do to get it right.

Wes Jackson, author of New Roots for Agriculture

In a well-reasoned, coherent . . . discussion, Curry and McGuire argue for a renewal of the 'concept of community' to counter the pervasive influence of individualism in all its form. A valuable contribution.

Choice Reviews

Curry and McGuire's provocative analysis shows that the privatization and degradation of the American 'commons' have deep historical roots within the rise of industrial civilization and of the individualistic capitalist ethos. But they also show that history is now being rewritten as promising new alternatives to the degradation of land emerge within American and Third world rural communities. A critical analysis of a critical social and environmental problem.

Frederick H. Buttel, University of Wisconsin, Madison