Often the highest praise we can offer a bright, promising student is “you’ll go far”.  Americans have long associated success with striking out on one’s own and heading for greener pastures.  But is this transient attitude conducive to the long-term health of local communities?  What happens to the places we leave behind and what impact does that have on us?

 

Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by Gracy Olmstead, author of Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind.  Their conversation delves into how Americans have historically thought of leaving or sticking with the communities of their upbringing and how American practices don’t always align with American values.  Gracy offers her thoughts on what wisdom Alexis de Tocqueville and Wendell Berry have to share and how the pains of homesickness might point us towards an understanding of what parts of the past are worth bringing into the future.

 

About Gracy Olmstead

Gracy Olmstead is a writer and journalist located outside Washington, D.C.  Her work has appear in The American Conservative, The Washington Times, the Idaho Press Tribune, The Federalist, The Week, National Review, and Acculturated. 

 

Gracy’s book examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting—for both her hometown of Emmett, Idaho, and for the greater heartland of America.  Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Uprooted wrestles with the questions of what we owe the places we come from and what we are willing to sacrifice for profit and progress. 

 

You can follow Gracy on Twitter @GracyOlmstead

 

Listener Mail

At the end of the episode, Josh responds to a listener’s question about the recent debate on the Right regarding whether Viktor Orbán policies in Hungary are worth emulating in the United States to effectively engage in the culture wars.