Author Cathy Stanton will visit the library to discuss her new book Food Margins: Lessons from an Unlikely Grocer. Food Margins tells the story of a small food co-op in Orange, Mass, a former mill town searching for its place in the twenty-first century economy. Part memoir and part history lesson, the book traces the tangled economic and political histories of the plantation, the factory and the supermarket through the life of one New England town and tells the story of a rural community imagining and creating a viable alternative to the mainstream in a time of increasingly urgent need to build a more socially and ecologically just food system.

"A piercing, passionate, and profoundly braided account" -Julian Agyeman, co-editor of Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability

Cathy Stanton is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Tufts University. She has written widely about industrial and agricultural history and historic sites in the American northeast, none of which prepared her for the challenges of actually trying to stay afloat in the grocery business. She is excited to share her experiences and insights with audiences!