ABSTRACT

Key Thinkers on the Environment is a unique guide to environmental thinking through the ages. Joy A. Palmer Cooper and David E. Cooper, themselves distinguished authors on environmental matters, have assembled a team of expert contributors to summarize and analyse the thinking of diverse and stimulating figures from around the world and from ancient times to the present day. Among those included are:

  • philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Spinoza and Heidegger
  • activists such as Chico Mendes and Wangari Maathai
  • literary giants such as Virgil, Goethe and Wordsworth
  • major religious and spiritual figures such as Buddha and St Francis of Assissi
  • eminent scientists such as Darwin, Lovelock and E.O. Wilson.

Lucid, scholarly and informative, the essays contained within this volume offer a fascinating overview of humankind’s view and understanding of the natural world.

chapter |5 pages

Confucius 551–479 bce

chapter |5 pages

Zhuangzi c.370–c.286 bce

chapter |5 pages

Aristotle 384–322 bce

chapter |5 pages

Virgil 70–19 bce

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Wang Yang-Ming 1472–1528

chapter |5 pages

Michel de Montaigne 1533–1592

chapter |6 pages

Francis Bacon 1561–1626

chapter |5 pages

Bashō 1644–1694

chapter |4 pages

Immanuel Kant 1724–1804

chapter |8 pages

John Clare 1793–1864

chapter |5 pages

Charles Darwin 1809–1882

chapter |5 pages

Karl Marx 1818–1883

chapter |3 pages

John Ruskin 1819–1900

chapter |5 pages

John Muir 1838–1914

chapter |6 pages

Black Elk 1862–1950

chapter |4 pages

Jakob von Uexküll 1864–1944

chapter |8 pages

Aldo Leopold 1887–1948

chapter |6 pages

Robinson Jeffers 1887–1962

chapter |5 pages

Martin Heidegger 1889–1976

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Eve Balfour 1898–1990

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E.F. Schumacher 1911–1977

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John Cage 1912–1992

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Arne Naess 1912–2009

chapter |5 pages

John Passmore 1914–2004

chapter |5 pages

Judith Wright 1915–2000

chapter |7 pages

Barry Commoner 1917–2012

chapter |6 pages

James Lovelock 1919–

chapter |6 pages

Mary Midgley 1919–

chapter |6 pages

Murray Bookchin 1921–2006

chapter |5 pages

Thich Nhat Hanh 1926–

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Yi-Fu Tuan 1930–

chapter |7 pages

Paul Ehrlich 1932–

chapter |8 pages

Holmes Rolston III 1932–

chapter |6 pages

Wendell Berry 1934–

chapter |5 pages

Jane Goodall 1934–

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Rudolf Bahro 1935–1997

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Roderick Nash 1939–

chapter |7 pages

Val Plumwood 1939–2008

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Wangari Maathai 1940–2011

chapter |6 pages

Bob Hunter 1941–2005

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Susan Griffin 1943–

chapter |5 pages

Chico Mendes 1944–1988

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Barry Lopez 1945–

chapter |7 pages

Peter Singer 1946–

chapter |6 pages

Al Gore 1948–

chapter |6 pages

Vandana Shiva 1952–

chapter |6 pages

Bill McKibben 1960–