Berry’s 1977 book: ‘persons cannot be whole alone’
Berry’s 1977 book “The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture” included the passage the AP highlighted in its reflection on his legacy. In its pages, Berry wrote that “persons cannot be whole alone,” framing environmental decline as bound up with the body, spiritual confusion, cultural disorder, and the condition of air, water, and soil.
AP reporter Peter Smith wrote the reflection on Berry’s legacy. Smith named Berry’s readers as writers, artists, local-food activists, environmentalists, agrarians, and many others — including spiritual seekers moved by his vision. Smith described Berry’s drawing of the connection between environmental crisis and human and spiritual life as running “in poignant writings across many decades.”
The AP said the environmental crisis Berry wrote about was also a human and spiritual crisis, one whose effects appeared in the body, in spiritual confusion, in cultural disorder, and in the condition of air, water, and soil.