Walking (1862)
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau’s long essay is for the reader who prefers the seductions of the wild backyard over the tasteful arrangements of the front garden. Even a century and a half ago, Thoreau feared humanity was becoming unable to reach its full potential because it was disconnected from the rest of the universe: “Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry,” he wrote. The essay is strewn with early American ideology and religiosity, but it reminds us of the pleasures of walking for its own sake. We may, for example, discover some of those things nature has formed perfectly and then hidden where we’ll never see them, under rocks and on the tops of trees.
Silent Spring (1962)
Rachel Carson
Back when progress was spelled DDT, the environmentalist Rachel Carson warned that chemical pesticides were poisoning not only insects but the birds and small animals that fed on insects, till Spring one year would come to America empty of bird song. To control a few enemies, our species may destroy its entire world. Drawing on a wealth of examples of agriculture, fish farming, and forestry, Carson connects the dots between our bug sprays and their irreversible and, worse, unpredictable impact on us and our environment. “The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection,” she writes, “but it has heard little of the other side of the story ... that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts.”
The Proper Use of Land (from Small Is Beautiful, 1973)
E.F. Schumacher
Schumacher’s book is a still, small voice against globalization. The essay on the use of land is especially fresh for readers watching the present tug of war between the corporations and governments who think they can take what acres they please and the farmers for whom land is life. Schumacher writes, “There is more involved in ‘agricultural operations’ than the production of incomes and the lowering of costs: what is involved is the whole relationship between man and nature, the whole life-style of a society, the health, happiness and harmony of man, as well as the beauty of his habitat.”
The One-Straw Revolution (1978)
Masanobu Fukuoka
Fukuoka’s treatise on natural farming, based on his own experiences in growing rice and citrus, threw “scientific knowledge and traditional farming know-how right out the window”. It inspired farmers throughout the world to think in terms of balanced control rather than eliminating pests and eradicating weeds. If farmers everywhere are resisting the armed might of agribusiness today, it is because Fukuoka’s insights were truly revolutionary. “Anyone who will come and see these fields and accept their testimony,” he wrote, “will feel deep misgivings over the question of whether or not humans know nature, and of whether or not nature can be known within the confines of human understanding.”
Salim Ali’s India (1996) Bombay Natural History Society
This lavish homage to India’s Bird Man contains essays from naturalists and orientalists about tracing the migratory route of birds, spotting wild cats, trapping elephants, and hunting tigers. Some of the essays date back to the early 1800s and they are all generously illustrated with photographs, bird paintings, and colonial-era prints showing India’s monuments and wild animals. Salim Ali’s own article on four birds of India that seem to have disappeared is a moving record of what beauties are lost and the dedication of those who seek to rediscover them. The book is a treasure chest from which, on any rainy day, a reader will enjoy extracting gems such as ‘The Use of a Hyaena’s Tongue and Fat as Medicine’ or ‘Effects of Mauling by a Tiger’.
