Following Nature’s Lead: Ancient Ways of Living in a Dying World

M. D. Usher; M. D. Usher

Book

Following Nature’s Lead

Ancient Ways of Living in a Dying World

M. D. Usher and M. D. Usher

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2025

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About this book

In the spirit of E. F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, a dazzling and revelatory exploration of what ancient ideas and ways of living can teach us about creating a more sustainable world

How should we think and live in a world facing environmental catastrophe? In this urgent, original, and wide-ranging book, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher brings together ancient, indigenous, and modern ideas about how to live in this world and describes how we might begin to reconnect with Nature and heal our damaged planet and lives. The ancients hewed close to Nature, the source of their survival, in ways that most of us can scarcely conceive of today, and ancient philosophy often argues that humans should follow Nature’s lead. Usher makes the case that Nature’s resilience can serve as a model for our own responses to climate trauma and all the other harms caused by modern lifestyles.

Drawing on philosophy, science, economics, art, literature, history, and religion, Following Nature’s Lead is both an indictment of human overreach and a celebration of human ingenuity and the adaptability of Nature. Here, Plato meets German biologist Jakob von Uexküll, Lucretius illuminates King Lear, and Diogenes the Cynic crosses swords with Henry Thoreau.

Filled with vital and inspiring insights, Following Nature’s Lead shows how the ancients can help teach us to live in accordance with Nature—and why it’s essential for human survival that we learn to do so without delay.

Author / Editor information

M. D. Usher is the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature and a member of the Department of Geography and Geosciences, the Environmental Program, and the Food Systems Graduate Program at the University of Vermont. His books include Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature and three books in Princeton’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, including How to Care about Animals and How to Be a Farmer. Usher and his wife own and operate a farm in Shoreham, Vermont.

Reviews

"Usher writes with a gentle, measured urgency that has me believing in him, and in his ancients, and at the same time in an unknowable, darkening future. Nature itself is resilient, Usher tells us, and . . . with [his] guidance, we may gain enough courage to look directly into the future we are now creating." --- "Usher offers deep insights into nature’s exemplary instruction. . . . Essential." --- "What does it mean to live sustainably in a finite world? The answers are not so simple, but Professor Usher guides us with wit and feeling. . . . [He] delivers his message in four sermons, but he does not preach. . . . These lessons from the past will be essential if we are to thrive, much less survive." --- "A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"

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Frontmatter
i

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Contents
vii

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Illustrations
ix

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Preface
xi

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Acknowledgments
xix

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Introduction
1

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1 “What Chemistry!”
14

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2 “There Are Gods Here Too”
45

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3 “Cosmos Out of Chaos”
87

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4 “There Is No Wealth but Life”
124

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Taking Stock: An Epilogue
171

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Notes
179

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Index
193

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A note on the type
205

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

April 1, 2025

eBook ISBN:

9780691249612

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691249612

eBook ISBN: 9780691249612

Keywords for this book

Ruskin; Thoreau; Plato; Lucretius; Ancient; Aristotle; Greek; Heraclitus; Seneca; Liebig; Bataille; Cynic; Whitman; Lear; Diogenes; Philosopher; Organisms; Ecological; Surplus; Technology; Freedom; Socrates; Stoics; Marx; Umwelt; Epicurean; Walden; Cordelia; Hesiod; Tick; Indigenous; Economist; Delphi; Grass; Gaia; Sand; Complexity; Societies; Household; Metaphor; Contrary; Epicurus; Ethical; Healthy; Manure; Socio; Farm; Surplus energy; Market economy; Fossil fuels; Sensory receptors; Socio economic; Rerum natura; Ruskin bataille; Modern humans; Butyric acid; Sand foliage; Walden pond; Civil war; Published posthumously; Environmental impact; Transformative power; Nitrogen phosphorus; Ecological living; Economic exchange; Planetary limits; Human creatures; Nature economy; Climate trauma; Cordelia lear

Audience(s) for this book

For a non-specialist adult audience

Following Nature’s Lead

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 “What Chemistry!”

2 “There Are Gods Here Too”

3 “Cosmos Out of Chaos”

4 “There Is No Wealth but Life”

Taking Stock: An Epilogue

Notes

Index

A note on the type

Bibliographic data