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joost_ahsmann's review against another edition
5.0
Eerlijk boek bestaande uit een aantal essays die het failliet van het vooruitgangsdenken van verschillende kanten belichten. Kingsnorth was milieuactivist maar heeft zich teruggetrokken in de wetenschap dat de ecocide niet te vermijden is, al een heel eind op weg is. Kapitalisme, verlichting, groei, technologie, allemaal facetten van de overtuiging dat de mens uitverkoren is en dat vooruitgang leidt tot een steeds betere, ideale toekomst (de mythe van de vooruitgang), worden door Kingsnorth gezien als een machine waarover de mens geen controle meer heeft. Het schip van de vooruitgang staat, als een denkbeeldige Titanic, op het punt schipbreuk te leiden en is niet meer te keren. Terugtrekken in een eenvoudig, low profile leven, en schrijven met aarde onder de nagels, is wat Kingsnorth en de medestanders van het Dark Mountain Project als enige antwoord ziet. Vluchten kan niet meer.
sawyerbell's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars.
Kingsnorth articulates so much of what I have been thinking and feeling over the past years. I applaud him for the clarity of his vision and his willingness to carry on in spite of everything.
Kingsnorth articulates so much of what I have been thinking and feeling over the past years. I applaud him for the clarity of his vision and his willingness to carry on in spite of everything.
micromys's review against another edition
4.0
The essays in this book come from a mix of sources, the backbone drawn from the Dark Mountain books. Several of the essays are astonishing, clear, thoughtful and life changing. This is a writer who is on a journey, who is changing his responses to the challenges faced by our world. While I often feel the same doubts that Kingsnorth identifies here, I’m heartened by his response and because of this I realise that I can, as an individual, choose how I live my life. This is a book that I will read and read again, and will learn from.
pauljohnnelson's review against another edition
5.0
“Sometimes I’m kept awake at night by a chicken-and-egg question: which came first, the science or the science fiction?”
I’ve had this exact same thought off and on again for the past ten years and was genuinely startled to see it offered up by Kingsnorth in this perspective-shifting collection of essays. Strongly recommend and unexpectedly ‘hopeful’ for want of a better word.
I’ve had this exact same thought off and on again for the past ten years and was genuinely startled to see it offered up by Kingsnorth in this perspective-shifting collection of essays. Strongly recommend and unexpectedly ‘hopeful’ for want of a better word.
jeffhall's review against another edition
4.0
Reading Paul Kingsnorth's Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays has become something of a watershed event in my life, allowing me to discover a map I didn't quite know I was seeking. As a technologist who has struggled with trying to engineer solutions to offset the impacts of climate change and general environmental degradation caused by my species, I have often heard the little voice that says "Give up, it's hopeless - the fight has already been lost." Paul Kingsnorth has heard that same voice.
This is not to say that Kingsnorth (or his readers) are defeatists, but rather realists who recognize that the Anthropocene epoch is too far advanced for us to reverse course. As a rapidly expanding human population contends with dwindling natural resources, what lies ahead is clear and unavoidable. Kingsnorth's approach is to initiate an "Uncivilization project" centered on rising "to the challenge of ecocide with a challenge of its own: an artistic response to the crumbling of the empires of the mind."
This has led to the Dark Mountain project started about a decade ago in the UK, which despite the ominous name (lifted from Robinson Jeffers' poem "Rearmament"), is simply an attempt to tell new stories that reorient humanity away from the role of exploiter and towards the role of humble partner in the natural cycles that we have so disrupted. Such stories cannot halt the unstoppable, but they can help us to seek a path forward that leads us to accept the inevitable with clarity and sanity.
Not all of the entries in this collection are perfect pieces of the puzzle just described: Kingsnorth is an English writer strongly rooted in the soil of his native islands, and a handful of the essays are quite specific to his own local concerns, and thus somewhat impenetrable to a foreign reader. But that quibble aside, the best pieces included in this volume are truly global in scope, and refreshing in their vision and their candor. I will be revisiting the essays in this collection for the rest of my life.
This is not to say that Kingsnorth (or his readers) are defeatists, but rather realists who recognize that the Anthropocene epoch is too far advanced for us to reverse course. As a rapidly expanding human population contends with dwindling natural resources, what lies ahead is clear and unavoidable. Kingsnorth's approach is to initiate an "Uncivilization project" centered on rising "to the challenge of ecocide with a challenge of its own: an artistic response to the crumbling of the empires of the mind."
This has led to the Dark Mountain project started about a decade ago in the UK, which despite the ominous name (lifted from Robinson Jeffers' poem "Rearmament"), is simply an attempt to tell new stories that reorient humanity away from the role of exploiter and towards the role of humble partner in the natural cycles that we have so disrupted. Such stories cannot halt the unstoppable, but they can help us to seek a path forward that leads us to accept the inevitable with clarity and sanity.
Not all of the entries in this collection are perfect pieces of the puzzle just described: Kingsnorth is an English writer strongly rooted in the soil of his native islands, and a handful of the essays are quite specific to his own local concerns, and thus somewhat impenetrable to a foreign reader. But that quibble aside, the best pieces included in this volume are truly global in scope, and refreshing in their vision and their candor. I will be revisiting the essays in this collection for the rest of my life.
willemijnkranendonk's review against another edition
4.0
‘Bij de beschaving is het er altijd om gegaan meer macht te krijgen, maar een oorlog tegen de wildernis in jezelf kun je niet winnen.’
partypete's review against another edition
5.0
one of the most provocative books I’ve read this year. I think this is a pretty essential read, even if not all of the essays are equally powerful.
cups's review against another edition
3.0
Still pondering what I think about this. A lot of it sounds like it coming from a place of privilege but I guess that's also the audience of this book. Some of this book made me feel guilty for the way I live and made me question some of my beliefs which is a good sign. But I also don't think I completely agree with his viewpoint of retreating away, maybe it because I'm young? I get that humans are just one tiny facet of nature and then end of our ability to live on earth is just like the end of all the other animals who have been wiped out during mass extinctions but it still hard to grapple with due to my innate ego???? Yeah not too sure need to keep having a think. Some his essays weren't the ones while others were pretty thought provoking which is all one really wants innit.
ericahun's review against another edition
5.0
An inspiring collection of essays that protest the necessity of story, and the desperate need for society to wake up from its mass delusion of progress and separation from nature. Kingsnorth points out the ongoing problems with contemporary environmentalism which stem from deeper human narratives that envision humans as the conquerors and controllers of the natural environment. The essays conclude with a sounding call for artists and dreamers to take on the important work of providing pathways to a new way of considering ourselves and our home.
Highly recommended for environmentalists, artists and everyone who shares concern for the future of our planet and humanity's place in it.
Highly recommended for environmentalists, artists and everyone who shares concern for the future of our planet and humanity's place in it.