Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World Paperback - 2011

Media reviews

“Integral Ecology is a forward-looking book that invites compassionate proactive activism when dealing with the messes we’ve made. Time isn’t on our side, but my optimism leads me to believe that if we embrace the authors’ messages and put them into action using humility, compassion, heart, and love, we still have a chance to pull ourselves out of the many deep holes we’re digging for ourselves, other animals, and ecosystems.”—Marc Bekoff, PhD, University of Colorado, author of Animals Matter and The Emotional Lives of Animals

“This is the finest book on ecology bar none. Highest recommendation!”—Ken Wilber, author of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and The Integral Vision


“This book offers a promising approach for making sense of the diverse perspectives on the environment, including the many ways of understanding the complexities and challenges of global environmental change. The integral ecology framework provides a valuable roadmap for responding to contemporary problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and land use change. Given the widespread and often heated debates about environmental issues, the publication of Integral Ecology is timely and appreciated.”—Karen O’Brien, PhD, University of Oslo, coauthor of Environmental Change and Globalization and member of the Nobel Peace Prize–winning team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)


“In Integral Ecology Esbjörn-Hargens and Zimmerman have produced a complex framework (rooted in a hierarchy of integrative levels proposed by philosopher Ken Wilber) for the multidisciplinary interrogation of ecological problems. This framework provides an intelligent basis for discovering what questions need to be posed in our de facto postmodern era, and how to formulate them most effectively.”—Stanley N. Salthe, PhD, Brooklyn College, author of Evolving Hierarchical Systems and Development and Evolution


“Integral Ecology is a remarkable work, indeed a tour de force. Like all path-breaking books it will provoke lively discussion and inevitable debate. It may even shift the course of our understanding of ecology. This is a book that invites us to read, enjoy, reflect, and act. And the time is now.”—Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD, Yale University, co-editor of the ten-volume World Religions and Ecology Encyclopedia and author of Worldly Wonder
“Deeper than deep ecology, integral ecology completes the century-long struggle to overcome the unfortunate legacy of Logical Positivism in the natural sciences and Behaviorism in the social sciences. Both blinkered and trammeled the human mind and spirit. At the the heart and soul of Integral Ecology is the frank recognition of interiority and subjectivity, as well as exteriority and objectivity, in the larger-than-human world. That's what Integral Ecology is all about. In addition to theoretical integral ecology, the authors, both gifted writers as well as thinkers, provide case studies applying integral ecology to real-world environmental conundrums.”—J. Baird Callicott, PhD, University of North Texas, co-editor of Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy and The Wilderness Debate Rages On