Mr. Seymour is far too politicaly correct for my taste. He seems to enjoy lecturing us on how wonderful his self-sufficient life is and how deficient a life we city-dwellers lead.
This book will teach you how to kill and gut your chicken, and if you can handle that, read on to learn how to kill and dress your lamb. It is much easier learning how to make your own soap - that is far easier, did you know, than coming across that bottle of maple syrup. (That's one unintended message that comes across in this book: Thank God for the modern city-life and the supermarket).
There is information on Dyeing and Weaving, Curing and Tanning, Making Bricks and Tiles. There is information on 101 things we take for granted in our everday city-world. It is thus my kind of book, and the book for every Renaissance man and woman.
Seymour's work is a signature type; a bible that belongs in every home. It is pleasing to page through, and informative in a way that connects us to the majesty of life. As a practical matter, this would be the book to have when the lights go out and civilization needs to reinvent maple syrup.
It is a dreamers book, and a book for those interested in how their ancestor lived. Finally, this is a book we who take much for granted, for the P.C. lecture that takes is the one showing how truly dependent modern-man has become.
In his other writings, Jonathan Seymour has a streak of anti-urbanism that I don't like--I don't share his view that cities are unnatural, diseased places. But he seems to have overcome it here with a description of urban gardens, limited-scale self-sufficiency and the like. This book lets you pick and choose; if you want to grow wheat on five acres, harrow, harvest, thresh and grind it yourself, that's fine. On the other hand, if you live on a half-acre lot and just want to set up a backyard garden, a compost pile and maybe a beehive, this book will also show you how.