Learning Native Wisdom

What Traditional Cultures Teach Us About Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality (Culture of the Land)

By: Gary Holthaus

Narrated by: Kenneth Lee

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Scientific evidence has made it abundantly clear that the world's population can no longer continue its present rate of consuming and despoiling the planet's limited natural resources. Scholars, activists, politicians, and citizens worldwide are promoting the idea of sustainability, or systems and practices of living that allow a community to maintain itself indefinitely. Despite increased interest in sustainability, its popularity alone is insufficient to shift our culture and society toward more stable practices. Gary Holthaus argues that sustainability is achievable but is less a set of practices than the result of a healthy worldview. Learning Native Wisdom: Reflections on Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality examines several facets of societies - cultural, economic, agricultural, and political - seeking insights into the ability of some societies to remain vibrant for thousands of years, even in extremely adverse conditions and climates. Holthaus looks to Eskimo and other Native American peoples of Alaska for the practical wisdom behind this way of living. Learning Native Wisdom explains why achieving a sustainable culture is more important than any other challenge we face today. Although there are many measures of a society's progress, Holthaus warns that only a shift away from our current culture of short-term abundance, founded on a belief in infinite economic growth, will represent true advancement. In societies that value the longevity of people, culture, and the environment, subsistence and spirituality soon become closely allied with sustainability.

Ultimately, Holthaus illustrates how spirituality and the concept of subsistence can act as powerful guiding forces on the path to global sustainability. He examines the perceptions of cultures far more successful at long-term survival than our own and describes how we might use their wisdom to overcome the sustainability crisis currently facing humanity.

©2008 The University Press of Kentucky (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

“This book is just what we need. It is deeply informed by Gary Holthaus's many years of teaching and working in the Alaskan bush.” (Gary Snyder)

“This is story-telling as learned from [Holthaus's] Indian and Eskimo friends and mentors in Alaska, with a brilliance that is refreshing because it is rooted in experience. Anyone interested in sustainability will find this book engaging and different.” ( Agricultural History)

“For Holthaus, the 'spiritual task' is to learn to love the universe, including all the creation and the destruction, the health and the disease. Holthaus does a wonderful job of communicating this task throughout Learning Native Wisdom. ” ( Worldviews: Environment Culture Religion)

Mechanical voice but the words are wise!

I especially loved the chapters on spirituality and sustainability. Explains and describes how our current culture is unsustainable; it is a very wholistic book, discusses a wide range of topics (history, philosophy, poverty, social injustice, nature and Nature). The author is fair while firmly standing his ground in his own beliefs, but does not blame. Rather he attempts to clarify the how and why of today’s US culture compared to the how and why of native cultures, and how we got from one to the other, while offering thoughts in how to return/change the way we think and do things.

I really LOVED the content, but it was quite difficult to listen to - the voice was rather mechanical and stilted and quite often some bits that were missed in the first recording were spliced in quite roughly.

true words

might be a smart thing to look at real problems and quit worrying about money and the color of underwear.