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Nature Across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-Western Cultures consists of about 25 essays dealing with the environmental knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Indian, Thai, and Andean views of nature and the environment, among others, the book includes essays on Environmentalism and Images of the Other, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Worldviews and Ecology, Rethinking the Western/non-Western Divide, and Landscape, Nature, and Culture. The essays address the connections between nature and culture and relate the environmental practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both environmental history and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.
List of contents
1. Environmentalism and Images of the Other.- 2. The Global Mobilization of Environmental Concepts: Re-Thinking the Western/Non-Western Divide.- 3. Variation and Uniformity in the Construction of Biological Knowledge Across Cultures.- 4. Local Understandings of the Land: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge.- 5. Landscape, Nature, and Culture: A Diachronic Model of Human-Nature Adaptations.- 6. Worldviews and Ecology.- 7. The Spirit(s) of Conservation in Buddhist Thailand.- 8. Indian Perspectives on Naturalism.- 9. Japanese Views of Nature and the Environment.- 10. Winds, Waters, and Earth Energies: Fengshui and Awareness of Place.- 11. The Perception of Nature and the Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa.- 12. Knowing Country: Indigenous Australians and the Land.- 13. Both Sides of the Beach: Knowledges of Nature in Oceania.- 14. Native Views of the Environment in Amazonia.- 15. Central Andean Views of Nature and the Environment.- 16. "Nature Doesn't Come as Clean as We Can Think It": Dene, Inuit, Scientists, Nature and Environment in the Canadian North.- 17. We Are the Land: Native American Views of Nature.- 18. Buddhist Views of Nature and the Environment.- 19. Confucian Views of Nature.- 20. Daoism and Nature.- 21. Hindu Views of Nature and the Environment.- 22. Nature and Culture: An Islamic Perspective.- 23. Judaism, Israel, and Natural Resources: Models and Practices.
Summary
Nature Across Cultures: Views of Nature and the Environment in Non-Western Cultures consists of about 25 essays dealing with the environmental knowledge and beliefs of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. In addition to articles surveying Islamic, Chinese, Native American, Aboriginal Australian, Indian, Thai, and Andean views of nature and the environment, among others, the book includes essays on Environmentalism and Images of the Other, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Worldviews and Ecology, Rethinking the Western/non-Western Divide, and Landscape, Nature, and Culture. The essays address the connections between nature and culture and relate the environmental practices to the cultures which produced them. Each essay contains an extensive bibliography. Because the geographic range is global, the book fills a gap in both environmental history and in cultural studies. It should find a place on the bookshelves of advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars, as well as in libraries serving those groups.
