kruti's review against another edition
3.0
I’d been looking forward to reading this for a while - until I finally got my hands on the book and realised I was misled by the title too.
The book profiles environmentalists and ecological schools of thought from the West and from India. The author talks about exploitative overconsumption, existing environmental movements, and how conservation work can be but futile if it isn’t complemented with a reduction in individual consumptions. Some good insights into the history of how the West and India have perceived society’s role with respect to the environment.
While that is an interesting comparison in itself, there was potential to explore much more in those ideologies, to finally arrive at the concluding chapter: “How much should a person consume?”. Instead - the flow felt fairly disjoint and the concluding chapter didn’t provide much new insight into individual consumption or actions.
The book profiles environmentalists and ecological schools of thought from the West and from India. The author talks about exploitative overconsumption, existing environmental movements, and how conservation work can be but futile if it isn’t complemented with a reduction in individual consumptions. Some good insights into the history of how the West and India have perceived society’s role with respect to the environment.
While that is an interesting comparison in itself, there was potential to explore much more in those ideologies, to finally arrive at the concluding chapter: “How much should a person consume?”. Instead - the flow felt fairly disjoint and the concluding chapter didn’t provide much new insight into individual consumption or actions.
nezuko44's review against another edition
1.0
There's a lot more information on the other environmentalists and ecologists and their research than any information collected primarily by the author. It's an extremely dry read and the title of the book doesn't reflect in the content at all barring the last few chapters. I'd avoid this one.
mveldeivendran's review
4.0
"Environmentalists may wish to change the world, but environmental historians should seek merely to understand and interpret it."
It's an attempt of a scholar trying to depict the ways we handle environment exploring the history, cultural traditions of United States and India, and relate it with our economic and social life, political institutions, mainstream popular mentalities, and scientific research. Providing ways to understand how people think when it comes to this topic, what makes them act in sects and groups, what means are being used by those.
This is an unavoidable work to be read for Environmental Activists, Tourists, Wildlife aficionados, Vegans or incorrigible consumers in general to get the other side of the picture on what are the consequences we, as a species in general, face trying to find an universal solution to problems across the vast geographical land and peoples with varied ways of seeing and living.
Raymond Williams says, "if we only talk of singular Man and singular Nature, we can compose a general history, but at the cost of excluding the real and altering social relations."
Maybe we can think about ending speciesism only after we start thinking of all humans as a single species acknowledging our differences in values and virtues.
We have the obligation to make this world a safer place for human differences as 'civilized' being of whatever that means.
I read it as a part of my elective paper on Social Ecology which aims to bridge the gap between authoritarian biologists who favor nature over man and anthropocentric socialists who favor the other way. A bit repetitive in certain places yet the writing style is interesting enough to get through. Recommended for the possibilities of life.
I shall never again think and see the national parks, wildlife sanctuaries the same way whenever I visit them, nor be happy if a new hydropower generation projects are undertaken by governments planning to build dams, nor subscribe to any particular ideologies of primitivism, agrarianism and scientific industrialism. That is a beginning.
It's an attempt of a scholar trying to depict the ways we handle environment exploring the history, cultural traditions of United States and India, and relate it with our economic and social life, political institutions, mainstream popular mentalities, and scientific research. Providing ways to understand how people think when it comes to this topic, what makes them act in sects and groups, what means are being used by those.
This is an unavoidable work to be read for Environmental Activists, Tourists, Wildlife aficionados, Vegans or incorrigible consumers in general to get the other side of the picture on what are the consequences we, as a species in general, face trying to find an universal solution to problems across the vast geographical land and peoples with varied ways of seeing and living.
Raymond Williams says, "if we only talk of singular Man and singular Nature, we can compose a general history, but at the cost of excluding the real and altering social relations."
Maybe we can think about ending speciesism only after we start thinking of all humans as a single species acknowledging our differences in values and virtues.
We have the obligation to make this world a safer place for human differences as 'civilized' being of whatever that means.
I read it as a part of my elective paper on Social Ecology which aims to bridge the gap between authoritarian biologists who favor nature over man and anthropocentric socialists who favor the other way. A bit repetitive in certain places yet the writing style is interesting enough to get through. Recommended for the possibilities of life.
I shall never again think and see the national parks, wildlife sanctuaries the same way whenever I visit them, nor be happy if a new hydropower generation projects are undertaken by governments planning to build dams, nor subscribe to any particular ideologies of primitivism, agrarianism and scientific industrialism. That is a beginning.
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