Grass Roots

Heather Robertson's classic account of life and death on the Canadian prairie was praised and reviled with equal vehemence when it first appeared: "a pack of lies" said one reviewer; "dynamite" said another.

Both her reporting and analysis are, in fact, explosive. The book offers intimate profiles of four modern prairie towns and of the immense difficulties faced by farmers in Western Canada. It offers sweeping descriptions of the forces that led to the settlement of the West, and examines how those same forces, controlled from eastern Canada, are causing the inexorable decline of many rural communities.

Grass Roots is a superb portrait of an imperilled way of life, combining economics, history and politics with a remarkable eye for storytelling.