Looking Back on Progress

Lord Northbourne (1896-1982), born Walter Ernest Christopher James, Fourth Baron Northbourne of Kent, England, was an agriculturist, educator, translator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. Educated at Oxford, he was for many years Provost of Wye College, the agricultural college of London University. In 2022, Angelico Press republished Lord Northbourne's influential book Look to the Land, in which he introduced to the world the term "organic farming." Northbourne had a gift for expressing the profoundest truths in simple, graceful language. In this book the he does not set out to deal with every aspect of our postmodern predicament (which he so presciently forecast) but instead steps back to diagnose it from several points of view. The penetrating clarity and freshness of the pictures he presents to the reader cannot fail to contribute to a better understanding of the ideology of "progress," both as to its origins and as to its tendencies in today's world. In the absence of some such understanding, even the most well-intentioned actions are likely to be undertaken in vain.