Book Review: Shelter From the Machine by Jason G.Strange

I was provided with a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Have you been feeling like you want to just drop out of society and move off the grid? Then you’ll probably love “Shelter from the Machine: Homesteaders in the Age of Capitalism” by Jason G. Strange, released March 23, 2020 from The University of Illinois Press. Strange shows the differences and similarities between “country and bohemian homesteaders”, the past and future of subsistence farming, and “critiques of mainstream material culture” in this very readable and realistic look at communities in Eastern Kentucky and beyond. I also appreciated Strange's in-depth analysis  of literacy--not only the ability to read but to possess the ability to distinguish between different types of information and media. Some homesteaders are extremely bookish and others have rebelled against all forms of book learning/reading. I really loved "meeting" the people he interviewed and I made a list of at least 10 books referenced in the text to add to my TBR.

Publisher’s Summary:
”You’re either buried with your crystals or your shotgun.” That laconic comment captures the hippies-versus-hicks conflict that divides, and in some ways defines, modern-day homesteaders. It also reveals that back to-the-landers, though they may seek lives off the grid, remain connected to the most pressing questions confronting the United States today.Jason Strange shows where homesteaders fit, and don't fit, within contemporary America. Blending history with personal stories, Strange visits pig roasts and bohemian work parties to find people engaged in a lifestyle that offers challenge and fulfillment for those in search of virtues like self-employment, frugality, contact with nature, and escape from the mainstream. He also lays bare the vast differences in education and opportunity that leave some homesteaders dispossessed while charting the tensions that arise when people seek refuge from the ills of modern society—only to find themselves indelibly marked by the system they dreamed of escaping.