The Pursuit of Ecotopia: Lessons from Indigenous and Traditional Societies for the Human Ecology of Our Modern World

by E. N. Anderson

Overview

The world environmental and social justice crises brought on by our high-throughput global economy can be ameliorated only if we adapt the pragmatic ethics of social cohesion in traditional societies to the modern world.

Traditional societies have much to teach the modern world about conservation and environmental management. The Pursuit of Ecotopia: Lessons from Indigenous and Traditional Societies for the Human Ecology of Our Modern World argues that the root of our environmental crisis is that we have not devised modern ways to induce people with diverse interests to think and act cooperatively to secure shared interests. We take a short-term, narrow view of resource management and ethical conduct instead of a long-term, global view of "ecotopia"—a conception in which the destructive corollaries of consumerism are curbed by emotionally grounded policies and ethics of sustainability, social justice, and stewardship.

In this controversial and brilliantly written book, author E. N. Anderson maintains that the world can escape impending ecological disaster only by embracing a political and ethical transformation that will imbue modern societies with the same shared sense of emotional rationality practiced by traditional cultures. He draws lessons from ecologically successful traditional societies—and also draws cautionary tales from traditional societies that have responded maladaptively to disruption and failed ecologically as a result.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313381300
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/22/2010
Pages:	251
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

E. N. Anderson, PhD, is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.

Table of Contents

Preface
1 People in Nature
2 Learning from Others
3 Rationality, Emotion, and Economics
4 Political Ecology
5 Environmental Justice
6 "All Politics Is Local," and All Is Now Global
7 Going Past the Land Ethic
8 New Moral Codes
Notes
References
Index
About the Author

What People are Saying About This

Leslie E. Sponsel

"The distinguished ecological anthropologist Eugene Anderson has effectively distilled and synthesized the knowledge and wisdom that he has gained from more than five decades of research and teaching on the roles of reason and emotion in sustainable resource and environmental management. In so doing he has advanced a long way toward constructing the foundation for a moral if not also spiritual ecology that will facilitate more serious and sustained consideration of the real possibilities of striving toward the ideals of ecotopia. His masterful treatise is destined to become a classic read, contemplated, and appreciated for decades hence by a broad and diverse range of scholars from the humanities as well as the natural and social sciences, policy makers and implementers, and the general public."

— Leslie E. Sponsel, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Ecological Anthropology Program, University of Hawaìi

Leslie E. Sponsel

"The distinguished ecological anthropologist Eugene Anderson has effectively distilled and synthesized the knowledge and wisdom that he has gained from more than five decades of research and teaching on the roles of reason and emotion in sustainable resource and environmental management. In so doing he has advanced a long way toward constructing the foundation for a moral if not also spiritual ecology that will facilitate more serious and sustained consideration of the real possibilities of striving toward the ideals of ecotopia. His masterful treatise is destined to become a classic read, contemplated, and appreciated for decades hence by a broad and diverse range of scholars from the humanities as well as the natural and social sciences, policy makers and implementers, and the general public."

—

Leslie E. Sponsel, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Ecological Anthropology Program, University of Hawaìi

Editorial Reviews

Essential. All levels/libraries.” —Choice

From the Publisher