Eric T. Freyfogle is professor and the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair in the College of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is also affiliated with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, including Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope and Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground.
Brilliant. Elegant. Excellent. Freyfogle s critique of the American land ethic penetrates deeper than most contemporary efforts and is especially praiseworthy because it goes the next step to explain and defend an alternative ethic based on good (ecological) land use, diffuse property rights, and revitalized communities. Bottom line: Freyfogle provides powerful and compelling arguments that cultural changes are needed if humanity is to address the environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. He weaves threads of his arguments through the works and lives of Aldo Leopold, David Orr, Garrett Hardin, and Wendell Berry, which he then uses to interpret and reinforce Pope Francis encyclical on climate change. A masterful work. Freyfogle gives us the reasons to change and charts a path forward. --R. Bruce Hull, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, coeditor of Restoring Nature and author of Infinite Nature Brilliant. Elegant. Excellent. Freyfogle's critique of the American land ethic penetrates deeper than most contemporary efforts and is especially praiseworthy because it goes the next step to explain and defend an alternative ethic based on good (ecological) land use, diffuse property rights, and revitalized communities. Bottom line: Freyfogle provides powerful and compelling arguments that cultural changes are needed if humanity is to address the environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. He weaves threads of his arguments through the works and lives of Aldo Leopold, David Orr, Garrett Hardin, and Wendell Berry, which he then uses to interpret and reinforce Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change. A masterful work. Freyfogle gives us the reasons to change and charts a path forward. --R. Bruce Hull, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, coeditor of Restoring Nature and author of Infinite Nature -Brilliant. Elegant. Excellent. Freyfogle's critique of the American land ethic penetrates deeper than most contemporary efforts and is especially praiseworthy because it goes the next step to explain and defend an alternative ethic based on good (ecological) land use, diffuse property rights, and revitalized communities. Bottom line: Freyfogle provides powerful and compelling arguments that cultural changes are needed if humanity is to address the environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. He weaves threads of his arguments through the works and lives of Aldo Leopold, David Orr, Garrett Hardin, and Wendell Berry, which he then uses to interpret and reinforce Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change. A masterful work. Freyfogle gives us the reasons to change and charts a path forward.---R. Bruce Hull, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, coeditor of -Restoring Nature- and author of -Infinite Nature-