- Paperback: 640 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books USA (5 Oct 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0375705600
- ISBN-13: 978-0375705601
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 3.8 x 20.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,102,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Many nature writers choose humanity's relationship to wildness as their topic. Evan Eisenberg examines the question with an eye toward Eden, "the wild place at the center of the world from which all blessings flow."
Humans left Eden; indeed, having left "Eden" is a defining myth in almost all human cultures. Eisenberg identifies three basic before-the-fall dreams: Eden, a paradise in space and time; Arcadia, the perfect pastoral blend of city conveniences and wilderness beauty; and the Golden Age, a time when things were really good. Humans almost universally think that sometime "before" or in some "other place", we (and all other species) lived in harmony and balance. Through examples ranging from cyanobacteria poisoning the early atmosphere with oxygen to ants raising aphids like cattle, Eisenberg reveals the fallacy of this notion. What humans have done that's different from previous world changers is allied ourselves with the annual grasses--quickly using up half a billion years of soil formation. With our crops, pets and viruses we've nullified continental ecological boundaries. The globe has been remade before, but not this fast or this far. We'll probably have to scale back our influence--the question is how and how much. This is where humanity's environmental battles will be fought in the future. Eisenberg trips up a bit in lumping environmentalists into two camps: planet managers (conservationists) and planet fetishists (preservationists), but he definitely sees the key ecological issues facing our civilization.
This is a witty, charming, and well-referenced book, full of scary environmental facts and comforting ecological truths. His conclusions are not new--that humans need thriving cities, not sprawling suburbs, to avoid overwhelming the wilderness that's left. But Eisenberg's insight into how we can be at peace with our world is valuable advice, if we could stop dreaming and heed it. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
"Dazzling . . . a prose epic." --The Washington Post
A mountain peak, a rolling pasture, a boulevard alive with sound and light--each of us carries, deep inside, a dream of paradise. In this magisterial contribution to the literature of ecology and the environment, our nostalgia for the myth of paradise--the primeval, self-sufficient, nurturing garden where mankind was born--is the starting point of a brilliant inquiry into what our place in Nature has been and ought to be.
Writing in lively, imaginative prose and drawing deftly upon disciplines as varied as biology, geology, anthropology, history, physics, and music, Evan Eisenberg examines the ways in which people have envisioned and tried to re-create the earthly paradise even as they have dealt with the often disastrous effects of their increasing manipulation of the environment. An encyclopedic survey of efforts to heal the dangerous rift between culture and nature, The Ecology of Eden is a landmark work that is enormously suggestive, informative, and a joy to read.
"It's a question many writers have tackled, from Paul Ehrlich to E. O. Wilson: How can we survive while population grows, resources dwindle . . . and the threat of global climate change looms ominously? Few have explored it with more originality or historic sweep. . . . A rich harvest, filled with many kernels of wisdom about the future of our elusive Eden."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"An ambitious, thickly braided narrative that makes the clearest bid to nudge the dialectic along. . . . Eisenberg traces the story engagingly, energetically, with a remarkable breadth of learning and a metaphor-maker's eye. . . . A vision of substance and genuine insight." -Los Angeles Times Book Review
A mountain peak, a rolling pasture, a boulevard alive with sound and light--each of us carries, deep inside, a dream of paradise. In this magisterial contribution to the literature of ecology and the environment, our nostalgia for the myth of paradise--the primeval, self-sufficient, nurturing garden where mankind was born--is the starting point of a brilliant inquiry into what our place in Nature has been and ought to be.
Writing in lively, imaginative prose and drawing deftly upon disciplines as varied as biology, geology, anthropology, history, physics, and music, Evan Eisenberg examines the ways in which people have envisioned and tried to re-create the earthly paradise even as they have dealt with the often disastrous effects of their increasing manipulation of the environment. An encyclopedic survey of efforts to heal the dangerous rift between culture and nature, The Ecology of Eden is a landmark work that is enormously suggestive, informative, and a joy to read.
"It's a question many writers have tackled, from Paul Ehrlich to E. O. Wilson: How can we survive while population grows, resources dwindle . . . and the threat of global climate change looms ominously? Few have explored it with more originality or historic sweep. . . . A rich harvest, filled with many kernels of wisdom about the future of our elusive Eden."
--San Francisco Chronicle
"An ambitious, thickly braided narrative that makes the clearest bid to nudge the dialectic along. . . . Eisenberg traces the story engagingly, energetically, with a remarkable breadth of learning and a metaphor-maker's eye. . . . A vision of substance and genuine insight." -Los Angeles Times Book Review
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14 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
A book too big for some readers?
3 Mar 2001
Format:Paperback
I read with disbelief some of the reviews, because I thought this book a work of genius - one of the very few that bridge the gulf between a scientifc and an arts view of history. My impression is that one reviewer is a fundamentalist Christian and that the others are mostly narrow scientists unfamiliar with ideas about myth and metaphor. Each seems to slate the book because it is not written from the standpoint of the reviewer's specialist interest. My own problem with the book was the many Americanisms and analogies from baseball and other sports about which I am too narrow to be informed, but I am not willing to knock off even half a star for that. I have made it my top recommendation for students of human ecology.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A stunningly erudite, beautifully written ecohistory
15 Oct 1998
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A stunningly erudite, beautifully written "ecohistory"; an account of Western man's relationship, aesthetic as well as practical, with nature. In the course of developing a persuasive argument for an original theory of living with the rest of the world, Eisenberg covers a lot of ground - Persian gardens, courtly love, Biblical history, the discovery of the New World - and clearly has read just about everything on his subject (and many others). Chances are, you will emerge with some provocative ideas and information you could not have easily obtained elsewhere. Although it seems dauntingly long at first, the persevering reader will find that the Ecology of Eden doesn't feellong in the reading;Eisenberg's prose is a pleasure and his careful structuring ensures that the argument is clear. If you have time to read only one book on the environment this year or next, make it The Ecology of Eden.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Beautifully written -- a complete environmental education.
2 Jun 1998
Format:Hardcover
Though this book is packed with information it is not only interesting but fun to read. Taking us from the earth's beginnings to now, it teaches us to understand that nature is always changing and that we are only a part of that change. The insights are brilliant, the breadth of information amazing, and the writing extraordinary.
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