John Feeney

Books

• Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization
  By Richard Manning. Good look at aspects of the problem of agriculture.
• Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures
  Anthropologist Marvin Harris offers a sweeping yet succinct account of the ecological underpinnings of human culture from pre- to post-agriculture. Key reading for understanding the "big picture."
• Coming Home to the Pleistocene
  Paul Shepard on our deep connection to the Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Sometimes dense reading, but highly worthwhile insights.
• The Eden Proposition
  Kurt Dahl's gripping novel of a billionaire's response to our population crisis. Exciting, disturbing, thought provoking.
• Elements of Refusal
  The first collection of John Zerzan's essays. I haven't read all of these, but those I have are very good, often looking insightfully at how domestication came to be, as civilization burried our true humanity. Zerzan's writing is essential.
• Endgame, Vol. I: The Problem of Civilization
  Derrick Jensen argues powerfully that civilization itself is inherently destructive and patently unsustainable. This volume makes that argument while Volume II lays out responses. Far beyond most of today's typical, semi-worthless environmental writing.
• Ishmael
  The first of a group of cornerstone works by Daniel Quinn. We forget that for nearly all our history we had a system that worked. In the last eyeblink of our time on Earth we abandoned it. We've been scrambling ever since to figure out how to live.
• Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment
  An anthropological collection edited by John Gowdy, this is foundational reading for understanding human life as it was (in a word, "sustainable") for all but the last eyeblink of our history.
• Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
  Update of the seminal study of the problem of the modern growth imperative.
• The Monkey Wrench Gang
  Edward Abbey's spirited novel which inspired generations of environmentalists and nudged them to consider how we can defend the earth. "God bless America. Let's save some of it."
• Overshoot: The Ecological Basis for Revolutionary Change
  Essential examination of the basis for our modern ecological challenge. Exceptional clarity of thought. The problem of overshoot is central to our dilemma. But most who haven't read this book don't understand it. Mandatory reading.
• Rewild or Die
  Just out! This is Urban Scout's book on rewilding. Thoughtful and provocative essays on humanity's greatest adventure, reclaiming what civilization has taken from us.
• The Population Explosion
  Solid overview from Paul and Anne Ehrlich, two of the pioneering voices.
• Sparing Nature: The Conflict Between Human Population Growth and Earth's Biodiversity
  Expands on anthropologist Jeffrey McKee's (and colleagues') important study. The current mass extinction goes grossly underreported in the media. Its fundamental connection to human population size and growth is even less often discussed.
• The Vegetarian Myth
  A most important environmental work by Lierre Keith. Though organized as a series of counters to the usual arguments for vegetarianism, it goes to the foundation of our ecological crisis, exposing the problem of agriculture at the heart of it.