Awards

• Runner-up for Literary Award (Science) 2011

Overview

"David Abram's first book, ""The Spell of the Sensuous""--hailed as ""revolutionary"" by the ""Los Angeles Times, "" as ""daring and truly original"" by ""Science""--has become a classic of environmental literature. Now Abram returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we've inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth. The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram's investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself--a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate. With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, ""Becoming Animal"" sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole."

Full Product Details

9780375421716

Table of Contents

Reviews

This book is like a prehistoric cave. If you have the nerve to enter it and you get used to the dark, you'll discover things about storytelling which are startling, urgent and deeply true. Things each of us once knew, but forgot when we were born into the 19th and 20th centuries. Extraordinary rediscoveries! -John Berger David Abram is among the most important interpreters of the wild voice within us. At no other time in Western history have we needed to listen to that voice, and David's, as much as we do today. --Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder As with many deeply original--and radical--books, this work may startle, even provoke the reader in its electric reversal of conventional thought. Worth any provocation for the profundity of its insights, this is a portrait of the artist as a young raven, arguing, with all the subtlety of his mind, for the mindedness of the body. An exercise of uncanny imagination by a writer who has a sixth sense for the intelligence of the first five. --Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey Provocative, boldly recalibratingsA creative and visionary ecologist and philosopher, Abram offers perception-heightening insights into the disastrous consequences of our increasing detachment from the living world as we funnel our attention to the cyber realm. He tells extraordinary tales of his encounters with wildlife from whales to ravens, and illuminates the planet(1)s myriad forms of sentient life. In addition to writing with poetic precision about sensory experienceBooklist, starred review This brave and magical book summons wild wonder to re-mind us who we are. --Amory B. Lovins, Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute David Abram's new book is so invigorating, its teachings leap off the page and translate immediately into lived experience. Shaking us free from the prisons of our mental constructions,

This book is like a prehistoric cave. If you have the nerve to enter it and you get used to the dark, you'll discover things about storytelling which are startling, urgent and deeply true. Things each of us once knew, but forgot when we were born into the 19th and 20th centuries. Extraordinary rediscoveries! -John Berger David Abram is among the most important interpreters of the wild voice within us. At no other time in Western history have we needed to listen to that voice, and David's, as much as we do today. --Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder As with many deeply original--and radical--books, this work may startle, even provoke the reader in its electric reversal of conventional thought. Worth any provocation for the profundity of its insights, this is a portrait of the artist as a young raven, arguing, with all the subtlety of his mind, for the mindedness of the body. An exercise of uncanny imagination by a writer who has a sixth sense for the intelligence of the first five. --Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey Provocative, boldly recalibratingsA creative and visionary ecologist and philosopher, Abram offers perception-heightening insights into the disastrous consequences of our increasing detachment from the living world as we funnel our attention to the cyber realm. He tells extraordinary tales of his encounters with wildlife from whales to ravens, and illuminates the planet(1)s myriad forms of sentient life. In addition to writing with poetic precision about sensory experienceBooklist, starred review This brave and magical book summons wild wonder to re-mind us who we are. --Amory B. Lovins, Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute David Abram's new book is so invigorating, its teachings leap off the page and translate immediately into lived experience. Shaking us free from the prisons of our mental constructions,

This book is like a prehistoric cave. If you have the nerve to enter it and you get used to the dark, you'll discover things about storytelling which are startling, urgent and deeply true. Things each of us once knew, but forgot when we were born into the 19th and 20th centuries. Extraordinary rediscoveries! -John Berger <br> David Abram is among the most important interpreters of the wild voice within us. At no other time in Western history have we needed to listen to that voice, and David's, as much as we do today. <br>--Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder<br> <br> As with many deeply original--and radical--books, this work may startle, even provoke the reader in its electric reversal of conventional thought. Worth any provocation for the profundity of its insights, this is a portrait of the artist as a young raven, arguing, with all the subtlety of his mind, for the mindedness of the body. An exercise of uncanny imagination by a writer who has a sixth sense for the intelligence of the first five. <br>--Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey <br> Provocative, boldly recalibratingsA creative and visionary ecologist and philosopher, Abram offers perception-heightening insights into the disastrous consequences of our increasing detachment from the living world as we funnel our attention to the cyber realm. He tells extraordinary tales of his encounters with wildlife from whales to ravens, and illuminates the planet&sup1;s myriad forms of sentient life. In addition to writing with poetic precision about sensory experienceBooklist, starred review <br> This brave and magical book summons wild wonder to re-mind us who we are. <br>--Amory B. Lovins, Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute <br> David Abram's new book is so invigorating, its teachings leap off the page and translate immediately into lived experience. Shaking us free from the prisons of our mental constructions,

This book is like a prehistoric cave. If you have the nerve to enter it and you get used to the dark, you'll discover things about storytelling which are startling, urgent and deeply true. Things each of us once knew, but forgot when we were born into the 19th and 20th centuries. Extraordinary rediscoveries! -John Berger <br> David Abram is among the most important interpreters of the wild voice within us. At no other time in Western history have we needed to listen to that voice, and David's, as much as we do today. <br>&mdash;Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder<br> <br>&ldquo;As with many deeply original&mdash;and radical&mdash;books, this work may startle, even provoke the reader in its electric reversal of conventional thought. Worth any provocation for the profundity of its insights, this is a portrait of the artist as a young raven, arguing, with all the subtlety of his mind, for the mindedness of the body. An exerc

Author Information

"David Abram is an ecologist, anthropologist, and philosopher who lectures widely around the world. He is the author of ""The Spell of the Sensuous, ""for which he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction; his essays on the cultural causes and consequences of environmental turmoil are published in numerous magazines, scholarly journals, and anthologies. David is co-founder and Director of the ""Alliance for Wild Ethics""""(AWE)."" He lives with his family in the foothills of the southern Rockies."

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