The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America

Authors: Sundeen, Mark
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
BISAC/Subject: SOC002010, HIS036070, BIO030000
ISBN: 9781101618059, Related ISBNs: 0735216088, 1101618051, 1524702382, 1524702390, 1594631581
Classification: Non-Fiction
Number of pages: 336,
Audience: General/trade
Synopsis: “An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times

The radical search for the simple life in today’s America.

On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically.   

A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.
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