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George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
Why is there a cow on the front cover of this book? This is a book about agriculture, and farm animals have become unfashionable in some quarters. Cows, it turns out, are responsible for global warming, climate change, and so, no doubt, rising sea levels and chemtrails. But any real farmer, from any time in history, knows that this is not true. Animals have been around forever. Animals are a vital part of an insanely complex living system. Anyone who knows the basics of regenerative agriculture understands this. Albert Howard spent years studying and using the methods of traditional Asian agriculture, and shows in this book that the fertility and health of the soil depend on humus, in the production of which animal materials play an vital role. A healthy soil needs animal inputs. Animals in agriculture are central; they're right in there with fungi. This message is not welcomed by those who would feed the modern world a diet of plant-based, lab-grown food substitutes that have lists of ingredients as long as your arm, and are going to save the planet using gene-spliced soybeans and 3D printed pizzas. So, the cow and her calf are on the cover to redress the balance, and also to feature as one of the stars of this book (along with sugar cane, waste pits, and public servants). She was the photogenic one. Albert Howard's text has been thoroughly re-edited in this new version of his book. The habit, common at the time, of using long paragraphs is not preferred by modern readers, so the text has been extensively 'reparagraphed'. Grammar has been tweaked, and styles have been adopted. Headings have been added, infinitives unsplit. The changes made have been to make things more comfortable for modern eyes and tastes. The sense and intention of the author has not been altered at all, of course. We hope that Albert Howard would approve of this reworking of his book. His ideas are more important than ever. Wendell Berry wrote in The Last Whole Earth Catalog "Howard's discoveries and methods, and their implications, are given in detail in An Agricultural Testament. They are of enormous usefulness to gardeners and farmers, and to anyone who may be interested in the history and the problems of land use. But aside from its practical worth, Howard's book is valuable for his ability to place his facts and insights within the perspective of history. This book is a critique of civilisations, judging them not by their artefacts and victories, but by their response to the sacred duty of handing over to the next generation, unimpaired, the heritage of a fertile soil."
. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.
