Spiritual Ecology ─ A Quiet Revolution

Sponsel (emeritus, anthropology, U. of Hawai'i-Honolulu) describes a series of small but incremental changes in how individuals and societies relate to the rest of creation. Taking a tree as the central metaphor, he looks at such aspects as indigenous peoples as the original spiritual ecologists, Saint Francis of Assisi as Medieval radical, wilderness disciple John Muir, supernovas, Joanna Macy reconnecting, Wangari Maathai planting trees, and Donald A. Crosby's atheist spiritual ecology. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Leslie E. Sponsel, PhD, is professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, HI, where he developed and directed the Ecological Anthropology Program for three decades.