After Eden

Sale Kirkpatrick Sale

Description

When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe. How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide?In After Eden, Kirkpatrick Sale answers these questions in a radically new way. Integrating research in paleontology, archaeology, and anthropology, he points to the beginning of big-game hunting as the origin of Homo sapiens' estrangement from the natural world. Sale contends that a new, recognizably modern human culture based on the hunting of large animals developed in Africa some 70,000 years ago in response to a fierce plunge in worldwide temperature triggered by an enormous volcanic explosion in Asia. Tracing the migration of populations and the development of hunting thousands of years forward in time, he shows that hunting became increasingly adversarial in relation to the environment as people fought over scarce prey during Europe's glacial period between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago. By the end of that era, humans' idea that they were the superior species on the planet, free to exploit other species toward their own ends, was well established.After Eden is a sobering tale, but not one without hope. Sale asserts that Homo erectus, the variation of the hominid species that preceded Homo sapiens and survived for nearly two million years, did not attempt to dominate the environment. He contends that vestiges of this more ecologically sound way of life exist today-in some tribal societies, in the central teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism, and in the core principles of the worldwide environmental movement-offering redemptive possibilities for ourselves and for the planet.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Evolution
• Anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 20 décembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822388517
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Praise for Kirkpatrick Sale’s previous books:

forThe Fire of His Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream

‘‘Excellent. . . . A truly marvelous bi ography of a misunderstood American hero.’’ U N I V E R S I T Y—D O U G L A S B R I N K L E Y, T U L A N E

‘‘Superb, beautifully written. . . . An info rmative, moving story that personalizes the relatively obscure life of a self-taught tinkerer who had a genius for self-promotion and exploiting the discoveries of others.’’ —L I B R A R Y J O U R N A L

‘‘Kirkpatrick Sale is one of those writers whose pen will always set the imagination alight regardless of his topic.’’ R E V I E WW O R L D —F O U R T H

forRebels against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age

‘‘The message of Sale’sRebels against the Futureis one of the most urgent of that in any book this century.’’ T R I B U N ESTA R —M I N N E A P O L I S

‘‘If Sale’s book serves no other purpose than getting us to ask ourselves whether technology serves us or we serve technology, it will be worth reading.’’ —W A S H I N GT O N P O ST

forThe Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–1992

‘‘I doubt that any  pages in the English language come close to edu- cating the reader about the environment—its despoilers and its defend- ers—as well as Kirkpatrick Sale’s small volume.The Green Revolutionis a tour de force. It is brief but comprehensive, analytical but readable, insightful, factual, current but historical and futuristic.’’ N A D E R—R A L P H

‘‘A virtual primer on current environmental politics. . . . impassioned in its advocacy and provocative in its analysis.’’ —R I C H A R D W H I T E , S TA N F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y

forThe Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy

‘‘Sale is an invaluable guide and teacher. . . . The breadth of his scholar- ship and the skillful mix of historical fact, conviction, and style makes this an absorbing book.’’ —E C O N O M I ST

‘‘Brilliant . . . well-researched, in sightful, and fascinating in both its por- trait of the Great Discoverer’s complex and tragic character and that of the age in which he lived.’’ C H R O N I C L E—S A N F R A N C I S C O

‘‘Scholarly, ambitious, meticulous, and angry.’’ —W A S H I N GT O N P O ST B O O K W O R L D

‘‘The author’s lucid, vigorous prose is a delight, whether he is narrating perilous passages at sea or steering us through the hazards of learned disputes.’’ —N E W Y O R K E R

‘‘A work of haunting attraction, of splendid magnitude, illuminating scholarship, and compelling strength and imagination. I find it a stun- ning achievement.’’ —J O S E P H H E L L E R

‘‘Acute and tough-minded . . . fresh and highly readable.’’ —L A R RY M C M U R T RY

forDwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision

‘‘Dwellers in the Landis at once an alarm, a directive, and a tonic. One could hardly ask for more.’’ —K A N S A S STA RC I T Y

‘‘A serious and wonderful book . . . excellent reading from cover to cover.’’ —A N N A LS O F T H E E A R T H

‘‘Dwellers in the Landaddresses questions of the greatest importance to the future of human life.’’ —S A N M E R C U R Y J O S E N E W S

forHuman Scale

‘‘If anything can arrest the total disintegration of world civilization today it will come through a miracle: the recovery of ‘the human scale’ described in Kirkpatrick Sale’s encyclopedic book.’’ —L E W I S M U M F O R D

‘‘Human Scaleis a truly comprehensive, well-researched, historically grounded, and utterly fascinating compendium of ideas, actions, and events showing the importance of scale in every dimension of human life. . . . Sale’s evocative, careful scholarship should be savored at a leisurely pace and pondered. For it is a rich, stunningly clear new map, a blueprint and a vision of a more humane, convivial future.’’ —H A Z E L H E N D E R S O N

forPower Shift: The Rise of the Southern Rim and Its Challenge to the Eastern Establishment

‘‘Powerful and persuasive . . . an important and successful interpretation of a generation of turbulent change in the American political economy.’’ —N E W Y O R K T I M E S B O O K R E V I E W

‘‘An important insight—deeply researched, brilliantly elaborated, compel- lingly written.’’ A N T H O N Y —J . L U K A S

AFTE R E DE N

AFTER    EDEN  

 

Duke University Press Durham and London 

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©  Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

There were at least two broad and overlapping epochs

in prehistory: one in which our ancestors confronted the

world, for the most part, as potential prey, and another

in which they took their place among the predators which

had for so long oppressed them. The transition from one

status to the other . . . had to be the single greatest advance

in human evolution. —Barbara Ehrenreich,Blood Rites

Man is the most dominant animal that has ever appeared

on earth. —Charles Darwin,The Descent of Man