Lord Northbourne (1896-1982) was a man of exceptional vision, who
already in the 1940s diagnosed in detail the sickness of modern society
as stemming from the severance of its organic links with the wholeness
of life. A leading figure in the early organic farming movement, his
writings profoundly affected such other pioneers as Sir Albert Howard,
Rolf Gardiner, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, and H. J. Massingham. His path led
him on to a profound study of comparative religion, traditional
metaphysics, and the science of symbols, which he employed in incisive
observations on the character of modern society. His later writings
exercised considerable influence on his younger contemporaries E. F.
Schumacher and Thomas Merton, and in many ways anticipate the essays of
Wendell Berry. The republication of this milestone ecological text will
be followed by three volumes of Northbourne's later metaphysical and
cultural writings.