How should we think and live in a world facing environmental catastrophe? In this urgent, original, and wide-ranging book, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher brings together ancient, indigenous, and modern ideas about how to live in this world and describes how we might begin to reconnect with Nature and heal our damaged planet and lives. The ancients hewed close to Nature, the source of their survival, in ways that most of us can scarcely conceive of today, and ancient philosophy often argues that humans should follow Nature鈥檚 lead. Usher makes the case that Nature鈥檚 resilience can serve as a model for our own responses to climate trauma and all the other harms caused by modern lifestyles.
Drawing on philosophy, science, economics, art, literature, history, and religion, Following Nature鈥檚 Lead is both an indictment of human overreach and a celebration of human ingenuity and the adaptability of Nature. Here, Plato meets German biologist Jakob von Uexk眉ll, Lucretius illuminates King Lear, and Diogenes the Cynic crosses swords with Henry Thoreau.
Filled with vital and inspiring insights, Following Nature鈥檚 Lead shows how the ancients can help teach us to live in accordance with Nature鈥攁nd why it鈥檚 essential for human survival that we learn to do so without delay.
M. D. Usher is the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature and a member of the Department of Geography and Geosciences, the Environmental Program, and the Food Systems Graduate Program at the University of Vermont. His books include Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature and three books in Princeton’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, including How to Care about Animals and How to Be a Farmer. Usher and his wife own and operate a farm in Shoreham, Vermont.
“Following Nature’s Lead brings ancient Greek and Roman philosophy to bear on our contemporary global ecological crisis. With wry sagacity and genial erudition, Mark Usher reminds us that those works that come down to us today as classics teach us humility in the face of Nature. Weaving meditations across the centuries from Lucretius to Bataille, this book makes clear we have much to learn about our new and uncertain predicament from ancient thinkers and their epigones. There is wisdom here, if we but heed it.”—Roy Scranton, author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization
“Mark Usher makes a compelling case that we can learn, or relearn, to follow Nature’s lead through an engagement with ancient Greek and Roman literature. He offers memorable readings of a fantastically wide range of ancient and modern authors, from Epicurus and Aristotle to Thoreau and Whitman. The book is full of original and enriching insights; there is nothing else quite like it.”—Jason K枚nig, author of The Folds of Olympus: Mountains in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture
“In this master class on ancient ecologically minded philosophy, Mark Usher invites us to live differently, to realign our desires with models of sustainability, and to chart a path toward living full and meaningful lives even as climate change renders our environment increasingly hostile to traditional forms of human flourishing.”—Tom Hawkins, author of Hacking Classical Forms in Haitian Literature
