The Need to Be Whole

By: Wendell Berry

Narrated by: Nick Offerman

Wendell Berry has never been afraid to speak up for the dispossessed. The Need to Be Whole continues the work he began in The Hidden Wound (1970) and The Unsettling of America (1977), demanding a careful exploration of this hard, shared truth: The wealth of the mighty few governing this nation has been built on the unpaid labor of others.

Without historical understanding of this practice of dispossession—the displacement of Native peoples, the destruction of both the land and land-based communities, ongoing racial division—we are doomed to continue industrialism’s assault on both the natural world and every sacred American ideal. Berry writes, “To deal with so great a problem, the best idea may not be to go ahead in our present state of unhealth to more disease and more product development. It may be that our proper first resort should be to history: to see if the truth we need to pursue might be behind us where we have ceased to look.” If there is hope for us, this is it: that we honestly face our past and move into a future guided by the natural laws of affection. This book furthers Mr. Berry’s part in what is surely our country’s most vital conversation.

©2022 Wendell Berry (P)2022 Recorded Books

An important read for anyone concerned with the future (and past) of the US. Critical perspectives, some difficult to accept.

Berry drives home the social, economic, and ecological losses suffered by the masses as a result of industrialization, extraction, and wealth building of the few. Somewhere in there is a message of self-sufficiency as an avenue to community interdependence, and the healing powers of the small farm town lifeway in terms of race relations. He exposes the intimate work lives of those who have labored in fields, and makes us nostalgic for a life most of us have not, and likely cannot, attain.

I don't agree with every take in this book, but I respect Berry's perspective as they cause me to struggle with some of my own convictions. E.g., he makes a case for leaving confederate statues standing. While somewhat repetitive throughout, the book is cohesive and the ideas are clear.

Truth and wisdom concerning the wounds we suffer as humans in America.

Just read the damn book. He’s much better at explaining it than me. Probably the most important book I’ve read in my twenties.

Understanding and a Reverence for Life

WOW!! An incredibly inclusive understanding of our differences and needs. I highly recommend this much needed book. It has changed my life and will continue to do so. Thank you Wendell Berry!!

Necessary Reading for These Troubled Times

No one but Nick Offerman could render this carefully reasoned and important book with the tenderness and depth and wit it so deserves.

It’s crucial that Wendell Berry be read and heard and taken to heart as it’s impossible to understand who we are as Americans — in all our hues and creeds, our dialects and ethnicities — without this kind of deep historical grounding. We all need to rediscover ourselves in terms of values.

We all need to be healed, as does the land we’ve taken and abused. To be made whole is at the base of the Greek word that gives us salvation.

This book — so clearsighted — left me feeling strangely uplifted, knowing myself to be so lucky to be in the presence of such loving and necessary genius

Uncommon candor, critical insights

It has been a blessed time of listening.
Deep reverencing of the earth. Imperative understanding of life.
Wendell Berry has the quality of teaching that I most admire.