cover image A Scott Nearing Reader: The Good Life in Bad Times

A Scott Nearing Reader: The Good Life in Bad Times

Scott Nearing. Scarecrow Press, $37.5 (333pp) ISBN 978-0-8108-2144-6

Many associate Scott Nearing (1883-1983) only with the back-to-the-land movement ( Living the Good Life , The Maple Sugar Book ). But as this collection attests, at an earlier period he was a leading radical, a pacifist and prolific writer on economics, labor and poverty. Sherman ( ABC's of Library Promotion ) here presents selections from Nearing's books and pamphlets and quotes from his debates with Clarence Darrow and Bertrand Russell and from his battles with the U.S. Government. Nearing was the only pacifist acquitted in World War I trials; included is a transcript of his defense. The first piece in this reader, written in 1911, is an eloquent attack on child labor; Nearing was outspoken on the side of workers, seeking economic justice for all. He is shown championing civil and women's rights, urging a united world and universal brotherhood. This collection, spanning 63 years, is an eminently worthwhile footnote to social history. Photos. (Jan.)