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Finding Lights in a Dark Age
Sharing Land, Work and Craft
My new book Finding Lights in a Dark Age is being published in the UK in October 2025 and the US in November 2025. Global society is unquestionably heading into a period of grave crisis, when the modernist gods of state and market, left-wing and right-wing, will need to be abandoned. But there are lights to be found – in grassroots practical and political work, in older orientations toward work and community re-tooled for present times, in approaches to the spiritual life. Come join me on this journey!
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My new book, critiquing food techno-fixes and making the case for local food systems
The Case for an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods
One of the few voices to challenge The Guardian’s George Monbiot on the future of food and farming (and the restoration of nature) is academic, farmer and author of A Small Farm Future Chris Smaje. In Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, Smaje presents his defense of small-scale farming and a robust critique of Monbiot’s vision for an urban and industrialized future. Responding to Monbiot’s portrayal of an urban, high-energy, industrially manufactured food future as the answer to our current crises, and its unchallenged acceptance within the environmental discourse, Smaje was compelled to challenge Monbiot’s evidence and conclusions. At the same time, Smaje presents …
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My first book
Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity and a Shared Earth
From the back cover: “A Small Farm Future is a ground-breaking debut, destined to become a modern classic – planting a flag at the intersection between economics, agriculture and society during a time of immense crisis. Farmer and social scientist Chris Smaje makes the case for organising human societies around small-scale, local, agroecological farming in order to meet the environmental and political challenges of our times. Drawing on a vast range of sources from across a multitude of disciplines, A Small Farm Future analyses the complex forces that make societal change inevitable; explains how low-carbon, locally self-reliant, agrarian communities can empower us to …
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