Woodland Philosophy

""No other living philosopher could have written this book. Sebastian Morello has produced a modern-day classic, a small miracle, really. Woodland Philosophy weaves together a deep philosophical account with an even deeper immersion in the truth, goodness, and beauty of the natural world, which earlier Christians often spoke of as God's other book of revelation. Morello writes movingly about the Creation, from which we've been disconnecting ourselves in the modern age. At the same time, he fearlessly defends the role of hunters and other true lovers of the woods and fields, currently maligned by our elites, who can open for us a path back to living well again, where we belong, in our proper home."" -ROBERT ROYAL, president of the Faith & Reason Institute and author of The Martyrs of the New Millennium ""Fieldsports, for Morello, are 'a kind of prayer.' Sebastian Morello provides a lucid, thrilling exploration of the intimate links between man the hunter, God, and the natural world. If you're only going to read one book about hunting, this is the one. It is also beautifully written, frequently witty, and refreshingly short."" -CHARLIE PYE-SMITH, author of Rural Wrongs and Land of Plenty ""Restoring us to what lives, breathes, suffers, and rises like steam against a backdrop of morning dew, Sebastian Morello's Woodland Philosophy is a paean to all that bleeds in the name of the Divine. Trekking a sure line between sentimentality and over-abstractionism, Morello offers a vision of the world that respects man's nature as cultivator and hunter as well as the challenges of 'nature's inner violence.' Vivid, organic, and alive, Woodland Philosophy leads us through mushroom rings and shadowy groves to hallowed and dappled ground, ever aware of the wonder of Creation and our duties as its stewards."" -NINA POWER, author of What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents ""Sebastian Morello confronts the secular, technocratic, gnostic assumption that our highest good comes by way of emancipation from matter, indeed from the earth itself. His is a rare but vital voice exploring and explaining why our initiation into the countryside and all that that involves-especially, and provocatively, fieldsports-integrates us into the cycles of the cosmos and nurtures our capacity for belief and belonging."" -GAVIN ASHENDEN, Associate Editor of the Catholic Herald ""Sebastian Morello is fast becoming my favorite living conservative writer. Woodland Philosophy is a compelling call for a return to nature, where reality outfoxes the abstract. Nuanced, funny, well-traveled, broad-minded, and surgical, Morello crams into a paragraph what some writers would spin a whole book out of. This is a rare conservative who not only walks the talk but stalks the stags, in his freshly waxed Barbour coat."" -TIM STANLEY, Leader Writer at The Telegraph