Foodtopia

“Insightful…empathetic…a thoughtful consideration of a topic that will have a substantial impact on our future.”—Booklist“A blend of history book and crystal ball…Foodtopia’s tapestry of food history refreshingly amplifies people and communities outside of the mainstream.”—Civil Eats’ Food and Farming Book Picks for Summer 2022“Foodtopia glides gracefully through the increasingly complex world of food, pandemic and all. An important contemporary book.”—Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt: A World History“Essential reading on the state of local and organic growing and eating, and a useful addition to the history of American utopianism.”—Library Journal“Explores historic back-to-the-land movements and how they helped today’s young breakaway farmers succeed.”—Maine Sunday Telegram“Kelley puts a human face on the back-to-the-land movement with fascinating profiles of the ‘renegades’ behind the centuries-old phenomenon…she excels at drawing the big picture around human relationships to food, resulting in a satisfyingly substantive work. Farmers and foodies will savor every delectable insight.” —Publishers Weekly“Margot Anne Kelley elegantly unearths the deep roots of today’s back-to-the-land movement, linking Henry David Thoreau’s 19th-century essays to the 21st-century struggle for food justice. Foodtopia shows that the desire to leave the city, grow one’s own food, and live more simply is almost as American an impulse as building highways and skyscrapers.”—Jonathan Kauffman, author of Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat“This book tastes so good—I ate the whole thing raw.”—Mark Sundeen, author of The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life In Today’s America

Margot Anne Kelley is the author of the forthcoming A Gardener at the End of the World. Her previous book with Godine, Foodtopia, was a Civil Eats’ Food and Farming Book Pick, a Maine Literary Award finalist in Nonfiction, and a Readable Feast Book Award Winner for Socially Conscious Writing. Ms. Kelley has served as the editor of The Maine Review and co-founded a community development corporation which runs a food pantry and community garden, among other programs. She lives in Port Clyde, Maine.