
Purchase
Self Published
November 2014
On Sale: November 4, 2014
256 pages ISBN: 0801453305 EAN: 9780801453304 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
In The Edge of Extinction, Jules Pretty explores life and
change in a dozen environments and cultures across the
world, taking us on a series of remarkable journeys
through
deserts, coasts, mountains, steppes, snowscapes, marshes,
and farms to show that there are many different ways to
live
in cooperation with nature. From these accounts of people
living close to the land and close to the edge emerge a
larger story about sustainability and the future of the
planet. Pretty addresses not only current threats to
natural
and cultural diversity but also the unsustainability of
modern lifestyles typical of industrialized countries. In
a
very real sense, Pretty discovers, what we manage to
preserve now may well save us later. Jules Pretty's travels take him among the Maori people
along
the coasts of the Pacific, into the mountains of China,
and
across petroglyph-rich deserts of Australia. He treks with
nomads over the continent-wide steppes of Tuva in southern
Siberia, walks and boats in the wildlife-rich inland
swamps
of southern Africa, and experiences the Arctic with ice
fishermen in Finland. He explores the coasts and inland
marshes of eastern England and Northern Ireland and
accompanies Innu people across the taiga’s snowy forests
and
the lakes of the Labrador interior. Pretty concludes his
global journey immersed in the discrete cultures and
landscapes embedded within the American landscape: the
small
farms of the Amish, the swamps of the Cajuns in the deep
South, and the deserts of California. The diverse people Pretty meets in The Edge of Extinction
display deep pride in their relationships with the land
and
are only willing to join with the modern world on their
own
terms. By the examples they set, they offer valuable
lessons
for anyone seeking to find harmony in a world cracking
under
the pressures of apparently insatiable consumption
patterns
of the affluent.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|