FINDING HOME: Writings on Nature and Culture...

FINDING HOME: Writings on Nature and Culture from Orion Magazine edited by Peter Sauer (Beacon Press: $15). The authors of these cogent essays attempt to place the concept of a home in the context of an ethical and humane stewardship of the Earth. Developer Wallace Kaufman learned that people who pay lip service to environmental concerns often lead ecologically irresponsible lives. He argues the source of much of the anxiety pervading Western society lies in the “violence needlessly perpetrated by our civilization upon the ecology of the planet; only by alleviating the latter will we be able to heal the former. This may sound at first like a simple statement of faith, yet it makes eminent and obvious sense as soon as we recognize our thorough dependence upon countless other organisms with whom we have evolved.”