ABSTRACT

Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment is a unique guide to environmental thinking through the ages. Joy A. Palmer, herself an important and prolific author on environmental matters, has assembled a team of thirty-five expert contributors to summarize and analyse the thinking of fifty diverse and stimulating figures – from all over the world and from ancient times to the present day. Among those included are:

  • Philosophers such as Rousseau, Spinoza and Heidegger
  • Activists such as Chico Mendes
  • Literary giants such as Virgil, Goethe and Wordsworth
  • Major religious and spiritual figures such as the Buddha and St Francis of Assisi.

Lucid, scholarly and informative, these fifty essays offer a fascinating overview of mankind’s view and understanding of the physical world.

chapter |7 pages

BUDDHA fifth century bce

chapter |5 pages

Aristotle 384–322 BCE

chapter |5 pages

Virgil 70–19 bce

chapter |6 pages

Wang Yang-Ming 1472–1528

chapter |6 pages

Francis Bacon 1561–1626

chapter |6 pages

Benedict Spinoza 1632–77

chapter |6 pages

Bashō 1644–94

chapter |9 pages

John Clare 1793–1864

chapter |6 pages

Charles Darwin 1809–82

chapter |5 pages

Karl Marx 1818–83

chapter |4 pages

John Ruskin 1819–1900

chapter |6 pages

John Muir 1838–1914

chapter |7 pages

Black Elk 1862–1950

chapter |7 pages

Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948

chapter |7 pages

Aldo Leopold 1887–1948

chapter |6 pages

Rachel Carson 1907–64

chapter |5 pages

Lynn White, Jr 1907–87

chapter |6 pages

E.F. Schumacher 1911–77

chapter |5 pages

Arne Naess 1912–

chapter |5 pages

John Passmore 1914–

chapter |7 pages

James Lovelock 1919–

chapter |12 pages

Ian Mcharg 1920–

chapter |5 pages

Murray Bookchin 1921–

chapter |7 pages

Paul Ehrlich 1932–

chapter |8 pages

Holmes Rolston III 1932–

chapter |6 pages

Rudolf Bahro 1935–97

chapter |6 pages

Val Plumwood 1939–

chapter |5 pages

J. Baird Callicott 1941–

chapter |7 pages

Susan Griffin 1943–

chapter |5 pages

Chico Mendes 1944–88

chapter |6 pages

Peter Singer 1946–

chapter |8 pages

Vandana Shiva 1952–