Synopses & Reviews
This work addresses the cultural background of stewardship as a progression from individual personal aesthetics to a deeply informed environmental ethic that could become a national environmental policy. Howell begins by assessing our personal cultural background and our philosophical notions of our role in the natural world. She looks at the evolution of Western civilization and changing worldviews in relation to nature, examining especially early conceptions of a more appealing, simpler life closer to nature in contrast to the perceived civilized world that is portrayed as decadent. Howell examines archetypes from literature and the popular arts, finding examples in Jungian psychology and in contemporary film and television that support the "Wild Man" image and promote the "Simple Life" yearning. She then looks at the early 20th-century conservation and preservation writers as the most direct ancestors of today's environmental movement and an immediate source of inspiration.
Review
Howell begins this fascinating book with a discussion of two films, Local Hero and On Deadly Ground, showing how in various manifestations of popular culture, 'each of us is either endowed with or searching for an environmental aesthetic." Howell argeus that people search for an expression of connection with nature in the popular media, and that this 'sacred journey' leads to better environmental policy.... [T]his ambitious and engrossing book presents a new understabding of its topic and is well worth reading. All general and academic collections.Choice
Review
[T]he author offers a number of insightful concepts and arguments....Many of Howell's points are extremely thought-provoking.Environment Education Research
Synopsis
Effective stewardship will require personal commitment to new-found environmental ethics that will come from a blend of scientific and spiritual traditions.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-252) and index.
About the Author
DOROTHY J. HOWELL, formerly an applied microbial ecologist, environmental counsel and educator, is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at Antioch New England Graduate School.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Origins: Whence We Come
Origins of the Western Tradition
Europe in the Continuum of the Western Tradition
Tradition and the Founding of a Nation
Repercussions: Expressions and Implications of Alienation
Imagination and the Arts: Where We Saw Ourselves
Emergence of the Simple Life
Sciences, Art, and Literature
Heroes, Wild Men, and the Noble Savage
Reflections of the Natural World: What We Left Behind
Lessons from beyond America's Western Tradition
Images from Our First Nations
Contemporary Amerindian Perspectives
A Sense of Place
Popular Culture: Outlets and Surrogates
Place and Ambivalence in the Popular Arts
Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes: Timeless Surrogate
Related Contemporaries and Descendants of Tarzan
The Ape-Man's Modern Descendants and Remote Relatives
Stewardship: Reconnection with the Natural World
The Human Niche and Defining a Personal Environmental Ethic
Cultural Sources for a Restored Relationship
Toward a National Environmental Ethic
Bibliography
Index