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Dark Mountain #1
Dark Mountain: Issue 1
Dark Mountain: Issue 1 is a book-length collection of new writing that goes deep into the roots of our culture, addressing the questions raised by the Dark Mountain manifesto: what do we do after we stop pretending that our way of living can be made “sustainable”? And where do we find new stories with which to ground ourselves, as that way of living passes?
The book brings together a remarkable combination of thinkers, writers and artists whose work engages with these questions. Their essays, stories, poems and images are woven into a conversation which draws on a range of cultural and intellectual traditions.
The book brings together a remarkable combination of thinkers, writers and artists whose work engages with these questions. Their essays, stories, poems and images are woven into a conversation which draws on a range of cultural and intellectual traditions.
248 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
Paul Kingsnorth
40 books622 followersPaul Kingsnorth is an English writer and thinker. He is a former deputy-editor of The Ecologist and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. He lives in the west of Ireland.
He studied modern history at Oxford University, where he was also heavily involved in the road protest movement of the early 1990s.
After graduating, Paul spent two months in Indonesia working on conservation projects in Borneo and Java. Back in the UK, he worked for a year on the staff of the Independent newspaper. Following a three year stint as a campaign writer for an environmental NGO, he was appointed deputy editor of The Ecologist, where he worked for two years under the editorship of Zac Goldsmith.
He left the Ecologist in 2001 to write his first book One No, Many Yeses, a political travelogue which explored the growing anti-capitalist movement around the world. The book was published in 2003 by Simon and Schuster, in six languages across 13 countries.
In the early 2000s, having spent time with the tribal people of West Papua, who continue to be brutally colonised by the Indonesian government and military, Paul was instrumental in setting up the Free West Papua Campaign, which he also helped to run for a time.
Paul’s second book, Real England, was published in 2008 by Portobello. An exploration of the changing face of his home country in an age of globalisation, the book was quoted in speeches by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, helped inspire the success of the hit West End play ‘Jerusalem’ and saw its author compared to Cobbett and Orwell by more than one newspaper.
In 2009, Paul launched, with Dougald Hine, the Dark Mountain Project – a call for a literary movement to respond to the ongoing collapse of the world’s ecological and economic certainties. What began as a self-published pamphlet has become a global network of writers, artists and thinkers. Paul is now the Project’s director and one of its editors.
In 2011, Paul’s first collection of poetry, Kidland, was published by Salmon. Since the mid-1990s, Paul’s poetry has been published in magazines including Envoi, Iota, Poetry Life and nthposition. He has been awarded the BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year Award and the Poetry Life Prize, and was narrowly pipped to the post in the Thomas Hardy Society’s annual competition.
Paul’s journalism has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Le Monde, New Statesman, Ecologist, New Internationalist, Big Issue, Adbusters, BBC Wildlife and openDemocracy, for which he has also worked as a commissioning editor. He has appeared on various TV and radio programmes, most shamefully ‘This Morning with Richard and Judy.’ He is also the author of ‘Your Countryside, Your Choice’, a report on the future of the countryside, published in 2005 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
He studied modern history at Oxford University, where he was also heavily involved in the road protest movement of the early 1990s.
After graduating, Paul spent two months in Indonesia working on conservation projects in Borneo and Java. Back in the UK, he worked for a year on the staff of the Independent newspaper. Following a three year stint as a campaign writer for an environmental NGO, he was appointed deputy editor of The Ecologist, where he worked for two years under the editorship of Zac Goldsmith.
He left the Ecologist in 2001 to write his first book One No, Many Yeses, a political travelogue which explored the growing anti-capitalist movement around the world. The book was published in 2003 by Simon and Schuster, in six languages across 13 countries.
In the early 2000s, having spent time with the tribal people of West Papua, who continue to be brutally colonised by the Indonesian government and military, Paul was instrumental in setting up the Free West Papua Campaign, which he also helped to run for a time.
Paul’s second book, Real England, was published in 2008 by Portobello. An exploration of the changing face of his home country in an age of globalisation, the book was quoted in speeches by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, helped inspire the success of the hit West End play ‘Jerusalem’ and saw its author compared to Cobbett and Orwell by more than one newspaper.
In 2009, Paul launched, with Dougald Hine, the Dark Mountain Project – a call for a literary movement to respond to the ongoing collapse of the world’s ecological and economic certainties. What began as a self-published pamphlet has become a global network of writers, artists and thinkers. Paul is now the Project’s director and one of its editors.
In 2011, Paul’s first collection of poetry, Kidland, was published by Salmon. Since the mid-1990s, Paul’s poetry has been published in magazines including Envoi, Iota, Poetry Life and nthposition. He has been awarded the BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year Award and the Poetry Life Prize, and was narrowly pipped to the post in the Thomas Hardy Society’s annual competition.
Paul’s journalism has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Le Monde, New Statesman, Ecologist, New Internationalist, Big Issue, Adbusters, BBC Wildlife and openDemocracy, for which he has also worked as a commissioning editor. He has appeared on various TV and radio programmes, most shamefully ‘This Morning with Richard and Judy.’ He is also the author of ‘Your Countryside, Your Choice’, a report on the future of the countryside, published in 2005 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 14, 2014
I will be writing a full review of this book on my blog at some point, once I'm done chewing over the effect DM issue 1 had on me.
For now here is the quickie version: I've never read anything quite like it.
I call it a "book" -- this is a beautifully produced, hardbound collection of essays, poetry, art, and fiction. Essays predominate, and with one exception they were by far my favorite: intelligent, enormously thought-provoking: how often do you feel that a book sits you down in a salon filled with bright people who are talking about things that interest you? DM did that for me.
About halfway through, I purchased Issue 2 . . . because I really didn't want the experience to end.
Highly, highly recommend to anyone who is interested in really thinking about environmentalism. Much deeper than the pap fed to us through the mass media. This is existential environmentalism.
Rich, rich stuff. Heady, rich stuff.
(Full disclosure: I have an essay in the edition coming out this spring. Couldn't be prouder to be a part of this project.)
For now here is the quickie version: I've never read anything quite like it.
I call it a "book" -- this is a beautifully produced, hardbound collection of essays, poetry, art, and fiction. Essays predominate, and with one exception they were by far my favorite: intelligent, enormously thought-provoking: how often do you feel that a book sits you down in a salon filled with bright people who are talking about things that interest you? DM did that for me.
About halfway through, I purchased Issue 2 . . . because I really didn't want the experience to end.
Highly, highly recommend to anyone who is interested in really thinking about environmentalism. Much deeper than the pap fed to us through the mass media. This is existential environmentalism.
Rich, rich stuff. Heady, rich stuff.
(Full disclosure: I have an essay in the edition coming out this spring. Couldn't be prouder to be a part of this project.)
June 20, 2021
I expected something much more radical. Too many men. Enjoyed the piece on enclosures, an interest of mine since Federici.
August 26, 2014
Like any anthology, there were bits of brilliance scattered amongst the filler in this first issue. I particularly enjoyed the essays, and the primer/appendix on Dark Mountain-esque literature will lead me down many new reading paths. I'm glad a collection like this exists, even if some of the writing didn't speak to me.
October 11, 2014
This is a terrific group of people who are trying to stop lying to each other about the state of the world. Also they have fun. Look into their web site.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews