An exploration of consciousness in all matter--from quantum to cosmos • Outlines theories of consciousness in ancient and modern philosophy from before Plato to Alfred North Whitehead • Reveals the importance of understanding mind-in-matter for our relationships with the environment, with other people, even with ourselves Are rocks conscious? Do animals or plants have souls? Can trees feel pleasure or pain? Where in the great unfolding of life did consciousness first appear? How we answer such questions can dramatically affect the way we live our lives, how we treat the world of nature, and even how we relate to our own bodies. In this new edition of the award-winning Radical Nature, Christian de Quincey explores the “hard problem” of philosophy--how mind and matter are related--and proposes a radical and surprising answer: that matter itself tingles with consciousness at the deepest level. It’s there in the cells of every living creature, even in molecules and atoms. Tracing the lineage of this idea through Western philosophy and science, he shows that it has a very noble history--from before Plato to Alfred North Whitehead. He reveals that the way to God is through nature and that understanding how body and soul fit together has surprising consequences for our relationships with our environment, with other people, and even with ourselves.

“The American people sees itself advance across the wilderness, draining swamps, straightening rivers, peopling the solitude, and subduing nature,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835. That’s largely how we still think of nineteenth-century America today: a country expanding unstoppably, bending the continent’s natural bounty to the national will, heedless of consequence. A country of slavery and of Indian wars. There’s much truth in that vision. But if you know where to look, you can uncover a different history, one of vibrant resistance, one that’s been mostly forgotten. This Radical Land recovers that story. Daegan Miller is our guide on a beautifully written, revelatory trip across the continent during which we encounter radical thinkers, settlers, and artists who grounded their ideas of freedom, justice, and progress in the very landscapes around them, even as the runaway engine of capitalism sought to steamroll everything in its path. Here we meet Thoreau, the expert surveyor, drawing anticapitalist property maps. We visit a black antislavery community in the Adirondack wilderness of upstate New York. We discover how seemingly commercial photographs of the transcontinental railroad secretly sent subversive messages, and how a band of utopian anarchists among California’s sequoias imagined a greener, freer future. At every turn, everyday radicals looked to landscape for the language of their dissent—drawing crucial early links between the environment and social justice, links we’re still struggling to strengthen today. Working in a tradition that stretches from Thoreau to Rebecca Solnit, Miller offers nothing less than a new way of seeing the American past—and of understanding what it can offer us for the present . . . and the future.

A post-capitalist manifesto for conservation Conservation needs a revolution. This is the only way it can contribute to the drastic transformations needed to come to a truly sustainable model of development. The good news is that conservation is ready for revolution. Heated debates about the rise of the Anthropocene and the current ‘sixth extinction’ crisis demonstrate an urgent need and desire to move beyond mainstream approaches. Yet the conservation community is deeply divided over where to go from here. Some want to place ‘half earth’ into protected areas. Others want to move away from parks to focus on unexpected and ‘new’ natures. Many believe conservation requires full integration into capitalist production processes. Building a razor-sharp critique of current conservation proposals and their contradictions, Büscher and Fletcher argue that the Anthropocene challenge demands something bigger, better and bolder. Something truly revolutionary. They propose convivial conservation as the way forward. This approach goes beyond protected areas and faith in markets to incorporate the needs of humans and nonhumans within integrated and just landscapes. Theoretically astute and practically relevant, The Conservation Revolution offers a manifesto for conservation in the twenty-first century—a clarion call that cannot be ignored.

In The Concept of Nature in Marx, Alfred Schmidt examines humanity’s relation to the natural world as understood by the great philosopher-economist Karl Marx, who wrote that human beings are ‘part of Nature yet able to stand over against it; and this partial separation from Nature is itself part of their nature’. In Marx, industry and science are the mediation between historical man and external nature, leading either to reconciliation or mutual annihilation. Schmidt explores this tension between man and nature in Marx and shows how his understanding of nature is reflected in the work of writers such as Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch.

In a time of uncertainty and devastation--from pandemics to environmental catastrophe--a call to action for finding beauty, creating art, and healing in community. When a beloved place is decimated by physical damage, many may hit the donate button or call their congressperson. But award-winning author Trebbe Johnson argues that we need new methods for coping with these losses and invites readers to reconsider what constitutes “worthwhile action.” She discusses real wounded places ranging from weapons-testing grounds at Eglin Air Force Base, to Appalachian mountain tops destroyed by mining. These stories, along with tools for community engagement—ceremony, vigil, apology, and the creation of art with on-site materials—show us how we can find beauty in these places and discover new sources of meaning and community.

Radical Environmentalism: Nature, Identity and More-than-human Agency provides a unique account of environmentalism - one that highlights the voices of activists and the nature they defend. It will be of interest to both students and academics in green criminology, environmental sociology and nature-human studies more broadly.

Forty million Americans have been driven from their lands and rural culture is being systematically crushed, even as wildlife, forests, and rangelands are dying. Journalist Elizabeth Nickson’s investigations into these events have revealed a shocking truth: rather than safeguarding our environment, radical conservationists are actually destroying our natural heritage. In Eco-Fascists, Nickson documents the destructive impact of the environmental movement in North America and beyond, detailing the extreme damage environmental radicals in local and national government agencies are doing to the land, the ecosystems, and the people. Readers of Alston Chase’s Playing God in Yellowstone and In a Dark Wood, and anyone who is deeply concerned about global warming and the environment must read Elizabeth Nickson’s Eco-Fascists.

"A thoughtful treatise on how popular representations of nature, through entertainment and tourism, shape how we imagine environmental problems and their solutions"--Provided by publisher.

Dzogchen, or the "Great Perfection," is considered by many to be the apex of Tibetan Buddhism, and Longchen Rabjam is the most celebrated of all the saints of this remarkable tradition. Natural Perfection presents the radical precepts of Dzogchen, pointing the way to absolute liberation from conceptual fetters and leading the practitioner to a state of pure, natural integration into one's true being. Transcending the Tibetan context or even the confines of Buddhist tradition, Longchen Rabjam delivers a manual full of practical wisdom. Natural Perfection is a shining example of why people have continued to turn to the traditions of Tibet for spiritual and personal transformation and realization. Keith Dowman's illuminating translation of this remarkable work of wisdom provides clear accessibility to the profound path of Dzogchen in the here-and-now.

In the dramatic narratives that comprise The Republic of Nature, Mark Fiege reframes the canonical account of American history based on the simple but radical premise that nothing in the nation's past can be considered apart from the natural circumstances in which it occurred. Revisiting historical icons so familiar that schoolchildren learn to take them for granted, he makes surprising connections that enable readers to see old stories in a new light. Among the historical moments revisited here, a revolutionary nation arises from its environment and struggles to reconcile the diversity of its people with the claim that nature is the source of liberty. Abraham Lincoln, an unlettered citizen from the countryside, steers the Union through a moment of extreme peril, guided by his clear-eyed vision of nature's capacity for improvement. In Topeka, Kansas, transformations of land and life prompt a lawsuit that culminates in the momentous civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education. By focusing on materials and processes intrinsic to all things and by highlighting the nature of the United States, Fiege recovers the forgotten and overlooked ground on which so much history has unfolded. In these pages, the nation's birth and development, pain and sorrow, ideals and enduring promise come to life as never before, making a once-familiar past seem new. The Republic of Nature points to a startlingly different version of history that calls on readers to reconnect with fundamental forces that shaped the American experience. For more information, visit the author's website: http://republicofnature.com/