Oil and the Germs of War, 1923. by Scott Nearing.
-I read the edited version of this in A Scott Nearing Reader: The Good Life in Bad Times, ed. Steve Sherman, 1988, but this is the longer original pamphlet version (as far as I know). I wish I could find either version in any significant copy-and-pasteable form online, but a quick search only showed up the pamphlet and Google Books ocr versions. (This is of course exhibit number google of how the internet does not have everything. It’s a big deal.) I got my copy of the book from the Chicago Public Library (and it’s in rough shape, water-damaged, but holding on.
``Through the years I have talked, written, lectured, and debated with minimal effect,'' Nearing wrote in his 1971 autobiography. ``Those who will listen to my voice or read my writings are fewer in number than they were 20, 30, and especially 40 years ago. There are even times when I seem to be talking and writing entirely to myself and a handful of friends and associates. What does one do in such a situation, with something to say and few ways of getting it across? .... How does one feed, house, and clothe oneself during fifty years of exclusion from the primary channels of communication and with no dependable source of income?''
Nearing answered his own question:
``Homesteading fitted nicely into the predicament which faced me in the 1930s. .... If one is to be poor, it is better to be poor in the country than in the city because one can at least grow one's own food instead of having to buy it from the barrows or pick it out of garbage cans on city streets.''
