Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development [Paperback]

Vandana Shiva (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1989

Janet Reibstein's mother and two aunts grew up in New Jersey amid a close-knit, extended Jewish family set apart only by a genetic propensity for breast cancer. Over fifty years, the disease claims Janet's two aunts, then her mother, then a cousin. Finally Janet must face the far-reaching decision of whether to undergo a preemptive mastectomy herself. A history of the disease in America as well as a story of sisters, mothers and daughters, and the men who love them, Staying Alive is ultimately a tale of extraordinary strength and of the power of love in survival.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Staying Alive is a woman's book-inspiring, gripping, compassionate, unflinching. A family story, an exquisitely drawn portrait of a mother and daughter, and the story of a woman's courageous decision to free herself from a history of breast cancer. I could not put it down."
-Carol Gilligan, author of The Birth of Pleasure

"Compelling ... What keeps this from being mere medical melodrama is the author's warm, meticulous reconstruction of her relatives' lives, including her tangled relationship with her beloved mother. A tragic but ultimately hopeful story." -Kirkus Reviews

"There are many fine stories here-about dying with dignity and with disability-and about the courage to sacrifice vanity in order to live without fear." -Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Janet Reibstein is a clinical psychologist and professor who has written and broadcast widely on the psychology of relationships. She is married with two sons and lives in the U.K. This is her fourth book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Zed Books (January 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0862328233
• ISBN-13: 978-0862328238
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A world-renowned environmental leader and recipient of the 1993 Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award), Shiva has authored several bestselling books, most recently Earth Democracy. Activist and scientist, Shiva leads, with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin, the International Forum on Globalization. Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India's leading physicists.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Revival of Feminine Principle for All of Us., May 5, 2005

By 

Buena-Onda - See all my reviews

This review is from: Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (Paperback)

The book may seem different from your perspective. However, it might be good to know what underlies the whole story in the book. From my point of view, the author's claim has nothing to do with political action but genuin intuition of humanity which can be said a sort of wisdom for our survival towards future. It encourages us to be aware that the ongoing value system under capitalism is not necessarily conforming to our actual feelings or experiences. If your suffering, fear and suppression seem related to the current social system, the book is worth reading because it helps you remember what gives you the sense of being alive, responsibility for and love towards the future of the world. Disillusioned of lots of tragedies happening to the world, we have started wondering which to call real, the inner sense of happiness or the material world.

I dare say, it is not critique that can change the world but sharing of anyone's failure within us. Only such an idea of sharing can lead us to the inner and direct experience that the other half of the failure has always existed in us. This is the only way and chance for us to make a step towards future. In that sense, what the author considers as a problem is not the masculine principle but the imbalance in which the feminine principle is being suppressed. Driven much so far by the masculine principle, we -both women and men- have been so bound to fear caused by dualistic and mechanistic views on life that we could not pay much attention to the self-destructive aspect of our society. The author, Shiva, simply but strikingly argues that the feminine principle of EACH one of us to be recoverd if we really want to remember what the meaning of life is, namely the reason why we have come here to such a beautiful place called "the Earth".

9 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Staying Alive:Women, Ecology and Survival in India, June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (Paperback)

Ahistorical, subjective, and repeatedly misinformed, this book sets out to critque the creeping sinister form that is development, and celebrate the virtuosity of the feminine principle. Shiva uses evidence which is at certain points weak, and at others just plain wrong. Her arguments to back up the essentialism of ecofeminism are totally unconvincing, and as both a feminist and an enviornmentalist, I felt my intelligence insulted by this text.