A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds

This new collection brings together twenty-nine essays spanning nearly forty years of Snyder's career, with thirteen essays written since the publication of The Practice of the Wild in 1990. Displaying his playful and subtle intellect, these pieces explore our place on earth. Snyder argues that nature is not something apart from us, but intrinsic: our societies and civilizations are "natural constructs." Whether through common language or shared geographical watershed, we are united in community. We must go beyond racial, ethnic, and religious identities to find a shared concern for the same ground that benefits humans and nonhumans alike. Snyder argues that this thinking will not make people provincial, but will lead to a new kind of planetary and ecological cosmopolitanism. . Twenty-five years ago, at the first Earth Day, Gary Snyder's speech in Colorado and his manifesto "Four Changes," included here with a new postscript, helped set the tone for our developing attitudes toward the environment. In A Place in Space, he continues his analysis, refining our role on this planet and calling for an ethic that gives moral standing to all beings.