Environmental and global outlooks are currently at the center of the most lively and urgent international scholarship. This volume serves to overcome the self-referentiality of American studies by intersecting the study of American literature and history with the questions and concerns raised by these perspectives. It re-conceptualizes the mutual and shifting positions of center(s) and margin(s), and subject(s) and object(s) in terms of relation and an inclusive structure of relations based on an ecological ethics. The contributions here explore many methodological hypotheses, ranging from Christa Greve-Vollp’s work on eco-cosmopolitanism to Peter Bardaglio’s report on US climate activism, as well as the ecocritical and ecofeminist viewpoints of Scott Slovic and Greta Gaard respectively. In addition to contributing to academic discourse, the essays—written by both young and established international scholars, and coherently arranged into four thematic sections—explore topics that are of interest to the broader public. The issues discussed here include identity and new forms of belonging; migration and the environment; ecolanguage, ecopoetry and ecopoetics; translation and multilingualism; animal studies; environmental activism; shifting geographies; and ecofeminism.

In his final work, the great and beloved Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr. takes us into the realm of the spiritual and reveals through eyewitness accounts the immense power of medicine men. The World We Used To Live In, a fascinating collection of anecdotes from tribes across the country, explores everything from healing miracles and scared rituals to Navajos who could move the sun. In this compelling work, which draws upon a lifetime of scholarship, Deloria shows us how ancient powers fit into our modern understanding of science and the cosmos, and how future generations may draw strength from the old ways.

Wall Street scandals. Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past. In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama). Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.

This book is about hope and a call to action to make the world the kind of place we want to live in. Our hope is to provoke conversation, and gently challenge possibly long-held views, beliefs, and ideologies about the way the world works and the people in that world. Written by eminent researchers and experienced practitioners, the book explores the principles that underpin living well, and gives examples of how this can be achieved not just in our own lives, but across communities and the planet we share. Chapters cover the stages of life from childhood to ageing, the foundations of everyday flourishing, including health and relationships, and finally wellbeing in the wider world, addressing issues such as economics, politics and the environment. Based in the scientific evidence of what works and supported by illustrations of good practice, this book is both ambitious and aspirational. The book is designed for a wide audience – anyone seeking to create positive change in the world, their institutions or communities. www.creatingtheworldwewanttolivein.org

The highly anticipated follow-up to Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone

A scientist makes a powerful case that preservation of the integrity of the biosphere is a necessity and an inviolable human right. A century of industrial development is the briefest of moments in the half billion years of the earth's evolution. And yet our current era has brought greater changes to the earth than any period in human history. The biosphere, the globe's life-giving envelope of air and climate, has been changed irreparably. In A World to Live In, the distinguished ecologist George Woodwell shows that the biosphere is now a global human protectorate and that its integrity of structure and function are tied closely to the human future. The earth is a living system, Woodwell explains, and its stability is threatened by human disruption. Industry dumps its waste globally and makes a profit from it, invading the global commons; corporate interests overpower weak or nonexistent governmental protection to plunder the planet. The fossil fuels industry offers the most dramatic example of environmental destruction, disseminating the heat-trapping gases that are now warming the earth and changing the climate forever. The assumption that we can continue to use fossil fuels and “adapt” to climate disruption, Woodwell argues, is a ticket to catastrophe. But Woodwell points the way toward a solution. We must respect the full range of life on earth—not species alone, but their natural communities of plant and animal life that have built, and still maintain, the biosphere. We must recognize that the earth's living systems are our heritage and that the preservation of the integrity of a finite biosphere is a necessity and an inviolable human right.