“Insightful...empathetic...a thoughtful consideration of a topic that will have a substantial impact on our future.”—Booklist

Readable Feast, Book Award Winner for Socially Conscious Writing * Civil Eats’ Food and Farming Book Pick

Ever wonder if there’s a better way to live, work, and eat? You’re not alone. Here is the story of five back-to-the-land movements, from 1840 to present day, when large numbers of utopian-minded people in the United States took action to establish small-scale farming as an alternative to mainstream agriculture. Then and now, it’s the story of people striving to live freely and fight injustice, to make the food on their table a little healthier, and to leave the planet less scarred than they found it.

Throughout America’s history as an industrial nation, sizable countercultural movements have chosen to forgo modern comforts in pursuit of a simpler life. In this illuminating alternative American history, Margot Anne Kelley details the evolution of food-centric utopian movements that were fueled by deep yearnings for unpolluted water and air, racial and gender equality, for peace, for a less consumerist lifestyle, for a sense of authenticity, for simplicity, for a healthy diet, and for a sustaining connection to the natural world.

Millennials who jettisoned cities for rural life form the core of America’s current back-to-the-land movement. These young farmers helped meet surges in supplies for food when COVID-19 ravaged lives and economies, and laid bare limitations in America’s industrial food supply chain. Their forebears were the utopians of the 1840s, including Thoreau and his fellow Transcendental friends who created Brook Farm and Fruitlands; the single taxers and “little landers” who created self-sufficient communities at the turn of the last century; Scott and Helen Nearing and others who decamped to the countryside during the Great Depression; and, of course, the hippie back-to-the-landers of the 1970s.

Today, food has become an important element of the social justice movement. Food is no longer just about what we eat, but about how our food is raised and who profits along the way. Kelley looks closely at the efforts of young farmers now growing heirloom pigs, culturally appropriate foods, and newly bred vegetables, along with others working in coalitions, advocacy groups, and educational programs to extend the reach of this era’s Good Food Movement.

Foodtopia is for anyone interested in how we all might lead much better—and well-fed—lives.

“Foodtopia glides gracefully through the increasingly complex world of food, pandemic and all. An important contemporary book.”
—Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History

“Margot Anne Kelley elegantly unearths the deep roots of today's back-to-the-land movement, linking Henry David Thoreau's 19th-century essays to the 21st-century struggle for food justice. Foodtopia shows that the desire to leave the city, grow one's own food, and live more simply is almost as American an impulse as building highways and skyscrapers.”
—Jonathan Kauffman, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat

“This book tastes so good—I ate the whole thing raw.”
—Mark Sundeen, The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life In Today's America

“A generous overview of Americans’ historic and contemporary involvement in utopian communities through the lens of their dietary beliefs and practices . . . should inspire us to support—and join—these movements.”
—Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

“A fascinating account, moving easily across eras, never starry-eyed but always open to the idea that we can do better than we’re doing!”
—Bill McKibben, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

“Margot Anne Kelley has revealed a story essential for our times . . . a spirited and beautifully written account of what dreams the soil can hold.”
—Jane Brox, Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm

“Essential reading for anyone wondering not just where their food comes from, but why.”
—Kate Daloz, We Are As Gods: Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America

“Margot Anne Kelley reveals the historical continuity that weaves together healthy food, community agriculture, and racial justice.”
—Mitchell Thomashow, To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning

“This book is a gorgeous cornucopia.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming, A Woven World: On Fashion, Fishermen, and the Sardine Dress

“These troops of back-to-the-landers have not just held a mirror up to American society, but given us a lodestar so that we might re-find our way, again and again.”
—Rowan Jacobsen, American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields

“To tackle the dire ecological and social challenges before us, we need a profound shift of direction. Foodtopia expertly documents the past movements that already clearly saw the need for this shift.”
—Helena Norberg-Hodge, Local Is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness

“Margot Anne Kelley makes the strong case that changing our food system is central to everything from the quality and availability of the food we eat to the fundamentals of our very democracy.”
—Congresswoman Chellie Pingree

“It has been said that no reality was ever created by realists, and the utopian movements that Margot Anne Kelley explores in her joyful book all took that to heart.”
—Gus Speth, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy