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Jump to navigationJump to searchAn Island in Time: The Biography of a Village by Geert Mak (view source)
Revision as of 14:09, 26 September 2010
, 14:09, 26 September 2010no edit summary
The consumer demands for better, more accurate labelling on their foodstuffs is what means that the open-pastured cows who got to choose what they ate (and produced milk of varying quality and quantity and content and taste as a result) got shut up in large sheds where the outputs were controlled by means of the inputs. There is something very wrong in that.
If all of this sounds a little too much "[[A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle|A Year in Provence]] for your taste, then let me just add that as well as being an excellent researcher and talented story-teller, Geert Mak has an eye for the planet and a pen for the lyric. He beds all of his exposition in the most beautiful descriptions of the Friesian countryside as it mutates through the seasons. The autumn mists and winter ice; the storms and long slow summer evenings. If it wasn't for the fact I know Jorwert lost its bus stop a long time ago, I'd be trying to figure out when I could go visit for myself.
First published in 1996, the English edition has been republished in 2010 with a new foreword by the author. Fifteen years on, his predictions were not short of the mark, and his conclusions have lost none of their relevance. An interesting read for anyone with an eye to social history – and an important one for those who might like to influence our social future.
