"Before storms that can destroy his crops in an instant, the farmer stands implacable. To fluctuations in temperature that can deprive his children of their future, the farmer pays no heed. Every day the elements remind him that his future is secure only through constant effort. Today that tradition of muscular, self-effacing labor is quietly disappearing, as the last of America's independent farmers slowly fade away. In The Land Was Everything, Victor Davis Hanson, an embattled fifth-generation California grape farmer and passionate, eloquent writer, answers this question by offering a final snapshot of the yeoman, his work, and his wisdom. He shows that there is worth in the farmer beyond the best price of raisins or apples per pound, beyond his ability to provide fruit out of season, hard, shiny, and round. Why is it, then, that the farmer is so at odds with global culture at the millennium? What makes the farmer so special? To find the answer Hanson digs deeply within himself. The farmer's value is not to be found in pastoral stereotypes--myths that farmers are simple and farming serene. It is something more fundamental. The independent farmer, in his lonely, do-or-die struggle, is tangible proof that there is still a place for heroism in America. In the farmer's unflinching, remorseless realities--rain and sun, hail and early frost--lie the best of humanity tested: stoicism, surprising intelligence, and the determination that comes from fighting battles, tractor against vine, that must be replicated a thousand or a hundred thousand times if a farmer is to have even a chance of success. A firsthand perspective on the modern farmer's struggle against drought, disease, insects, rodents, government bureaucracy, financial overload--and how those challenges promote qualities like independence, stoicism, and resolution."