From the eighteenth century to the twenty–first, the surprising history and inspiring contemporary panorama of urban gardening: nurturing health, hope, and community.
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Nurturing health, hope, and community, gardeners in cities and suburbs are reclaiming lost commons, transforming vacant lots into vibrant plots, turning waste into compost, and recreating what was once the most productive agriculture in recorded human history.
In a history that has been hidden in plain sight, working-class gardeners have consistently played an outsized role. In London, they devised ways to feed themselves when wage labor fell short. In Paris, a superabundance of horse manure in the streets nourished urban gardens that fed two million residents. In Berlin, gardeners built social safety nets for those marginalized by the state. In Washington, DC, African American migrants brought rural traditions of self-provisioning that were later disrupted by “urban renewal.” In rustbelt Mansfield, Ohio, farming ex-cons grow hope for the city’s future. In post-Soviet Estonia, shared gardens became lifelines for survival amid economic upheaval. And in Amsterdam, activists are reclaiming sustainable farming practices in a sinking landscape oversaturated with fertilizers.
Tilled into this rich history of urban agriculture is an inspiring layer of contemporary activism. Each chapter includes contemporary stories of people from all walks of life who, in their gardens, are continuing a great tradition of mutual aid, political resistance, and bold experiments in sustainability.
A manifesto for the next food revolution, Tiny Gardens Everywhere blends past and present, archive and experience, to offer a truly inspiring vision of the transformative potential of gardening and urban life.
Kate Brown is a distinguished professor in the history of science at MIT and author of four previous prize-winning books, including Manual for Survival, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. She currently plants her gardens in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Greensboro, Vermont.
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