Customer Reviews

Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature

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Being an environmentalist isn't just about enjoying the outdoors or recycling. This is an in depth study of the complex interactions between humans and our world and an examination of our historical and cultural relationship with our environment. In particular, I found the discussion of our meaning for the word and our concept of nature to be particularly enlightening. There is simply no place in the world that isn't touched by human impact and noone on the planet who isn't touched by our environment and what we do to it. A MUST for anyone serious about the study of environmental study.

This book is indeed about "rethinking" the environment outside of the usual realms of political advocacy. The editor, William Cronon, is an historian, and this book is the result of a multi-disciplinary conference of scholars working in surprising niches of environmental studies.

What makes this anthology so important is that many of the essays in it emphasize that our views of the environment, nature, and wilderness are "narratives" that are entangled with religion, culture, politics, and race--not just science. Cronon's introduction explores the concept of "wilderness" through time to the modern preservationist notion of a pristine, human-free zone, and the quandary that idea presents: wilderness preservation requires that all humans be removed from it.

This anthology contains essays about: the "Eden narrative" in Amazonian environmentalism (the Times reported today that the Amazon's indigenous cultures are now extinct); architecture and green space; what the "work" of an environmentalist entails; the role of nationalism in the creation of the park system; a study of the cladistics of ecological thinking in the 1950s; environmentalism as social justice in the inner city, and an essay by Donna Haraway about the role of race and "nature" in science.

My favorite essay, way ahead of its time, is by N. Katherine Hayles, "Simulated Nature and Natural Simulations." This essay addresses the epistemological problem in the distinguishing between the natural and the artificial, exemplified by two studies: the classical ethological modeling of animals as machines and the claim or right to aliveness for a-life computer parasites.

"Uncommon Ground" is just a dip in the waters. Sorely missing from this volume is E.O. Wilson's theory of "biophilia," which has been forgotten by almost everyone but selfish-gene proponents. Also missing is an economist's perspective of how industry's "use value" of a resource explodes beyond the point where it can be gauged in an environmental context. Take Superfund sites or the current oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. A quick profit on a resource--boosting workers for a time--can ultimately destroy their property values, recreational and subsistence use of wildlife, and the priceless and unknown values of ancestral/family claims, biodiversity, and health for decades, if not all time.

Much in this book is worth the time to read. But Cronon's essay "The trouble with wilderness: or getting back to the wrong nature" should be required reading for all natural resource - ecology - environmental science students. I came to this essay in graduate school and it put words to vague feelings of uneasiness I had been developing while doing seasonal work in natural resources after getting my bachelors. It literally brought tears to my eyes - which is saying something for a piece of academic essay writing. It's brilliant and worth getting the book for.

In most of the essays in this book I found ideas I'd never considered that eventually reworked nearly my entire conception of wilderness and mainstream society's relationship with it. I highly recommend this great collection of essays to those who enjoy thinking about our place in this world in new and brilliant ways.

Cronan has done it again! This volume of essays critically examines the concept of wilderness, nature, and humanity's role in the modern world. Though the individual essays are somewhat uneven, the main theme of the book is clearly communicated, especially in Cronan's introductory piece. That is, that the concept of wilderness needs careful rethinking, particularly with our world nearing 10 billion persons.

I returned this when I realized Prof. Cronon was the editor not the author. It's a collection of essays. I read a few. Not as good as Prof. Cronon can write.