Looking Back on Progress

Lord Northbourne (1896-1982), born Walter Ernest Christopher James, Fourth Baron Northbourne of Kent, England, was an agriculturist, educator, translator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. Educated at Oxford, he was for many years Provost of Wye College, the agricultural college of London University. In 2022, Angelico Press republished Lord Northbourne's influential book Look to the Land, in which he introduced to the world the term "organic farming." Northbourne had a gift for expressing the profoundest truths in simple, graceful language. In this book the he does not set out to deal with every aspect of our postmodern predicament (which he so presciently forecast) but instead steps back to diagnose it from several points of view.

The penetrating clarity and freshness of the pictures he presents to the reader cannot fail to contribute to a better understanding of the ideology of "progress," both as to its origins and as to its tendencies in today's world. In the absence of some such understanding, even the most well-intentioned actions are likely to be undertaken in vain.

Walter Ernest Christopher James, 4th Baron Northbourne (1866-1982), was an agriculturist, educator, and writer on both agriculture and comparative religion. Educated at Oxford, he was for many years Provost of Wye College in England. His first published writings were on organic farming, in which he applied the theories of Rudolf Steiner to the family estate at Kent (where the first biodynamic farming conference in Britain was held). In 1940 he published Look to the Land (Angelico Press edition, 2005), which raised many of the issues still current in the field of organic agriculture. After reading this book, Marco Pallis (mountaineer and author on comparative religion) contacted Northbourne and introduced him to the writings of the Traditionalist school, which he integrated into his own writings and life. He was a frequent contributor to the journal Studies in Comparative Religion. In addition to authoring books of his own, Northbourne translated the works of several fellow Traditionalists, including René Guénon's major work, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, Light on Ancient Worlds by Frithjof Schuon, and Sacred Art in East and West by Titus Burckhardt. Correspondence with Thomas Merton is included in the Angelico Press edition of his work Religion in the Modern World (2025).