Wilder Lives

by Duncan Brown

Wilder Lives uses ideas of ‘wildness’ and ‘rewilding’ to rethink human relationships with our environments in challenging but affirming ways. If the Earth is indeed 4.5 billion years old, as scientists currently tell us, recognisably human life has only been around since the last Ice Age, and as a species we have single-handedly destroyed our planet’s ecosystems in the short space of a few hundred years, then we urgently need to reconsider and redefine our identities and behaviours. Can ‘thinking wild’ help? Can it provide different ways of seeing, engaging, being human? Can we think of ‘wildness’ as something that may exist in gradations, or as quality rather than absolute value, and as something that has important ethical as well as biological dimensions? Can it lead us to a ‘world view locating humans in a satisfactory residence on this historic and storied Earth’, as Holmes Rolston (1988) suggests?

Brown’s argument in this book is wide-ranging, inquiring, challenging, but finally inspiring, and takes us through such questions as wildness and conservation, wild cities, rewilding language, wildness and food, wild animals, wild margins, and wildness in the ethics of human-animal relations.

228 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2019

Reviews

[Kobus Meiring · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, and a very nice introduction to the concept of “wild” experiences as a way of grounding yourself in the world. I enjoyed thinking about “evolutionary habits” that could provide a deeper sense of fulfillment when accomplished.
Would have rated it higher if not for the very uncontextualised and badly placed commentary on university protests.
Also more chapters on flyfishing was made out at the start, but maybe that’s your thing.

[Ed Stoddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very readable romp through concepts such as "wild" and "rewilding." What do such concepts mean at this stage of the 21st century? What does "wild" mean in an urban context, or the food on your plate? There is plenty of food for thought in this muscular book which I plan to discuss in more depth in comparison with other, more recent texts, which I plan to review. But this is a highly recommended read for anyone interested in notions of the wild and rewilding ...