Defiant Gardens : Making Gardens in Wartime by Kenneth I. Helphand, is a good book to read in the spring when the desire to garden and dig about in the dirt is very strong after a long winter. He studies very specific periods of history where gardening not only helped with physical survival, but helped people mentally survive.
He looks into the gardens that were created and documented in wartime. He starts with the trenches during World War I, proceeds to the horrors of the Jewish ghettos in WWII, and informs us about the gardens of prisoner of war camps in Europe as well as the civilian war camps in Asia. He ends with a chapter about the Japanese-American camps in the U.S. And in a final chapter mentions more recent wars in Serbia, Africa and in Iraq.
He explains the conditions of the war, the situations that these people found themselves in or were forced into. He goes into the documentation of the gardens - photographs and writings to show how these gardens sustained the people around them. And in some cases, he can tell us whether these gardeners survived their war.
This ended up being one of my favorite passages:
"In an extreme situation beyond an individual's control, such as is common during war, the manifestation of the human ability to wield power over something is a potent reminder of our ability to withstand emotional despair and the forces of chaos. Gardens domesticate and humanize dehumanized situations. They offer a way to reject suffering, an inherent affirmation and sign of human perseverance. In contrast to war, gardens assert the dignity of life, human and nonhuman, and celebrate it."
A very powerful book about a little known area of history. For serious gardeners and students of history.
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