About this Book

Scott Nearing (1883-1983) has inspired several generations of protégés, many of whom are among the movers and shakers of the contemporary homesteading movement, including Eliot Coleman, Gene Logsdon, Kirkpatrick Sale, Rob Roy, and Donella Meadows. Along with Helen Nearing, his wife for more than fifty years and co-author of the legendary book, Living the Good Life, Scott Nearing's fierce and eloquent writings were a catalyst for the back-to-the-land activism of the past several decades. John Saltmarsh's exhaustively researched biography captures the complexity of Scott Nearing's ideas as well as the simplicity and practicality in which they are grounded. Saltmarsh traces Nearing's life from his difficult early years as an outspoken radical in urban America to his more peaceful years of maturity. He homesteaded with Helen first in Vermont and then in Maine, and together they grew their own food, built their own buildings, and wrote iconoclastic and influential books about sustainable living as an antidote to consumerism and environmental destruction.