The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

David Suzuki

Greystone Books, May 1, 2009 - Nature - 304 pages

In this extensively revised and enlarged edition of his best-selling book, David Suzuki reflects on the increasingly radical changes in nature and science — from global warming to the science behind mother/baby interactions — and examines what they mean for humankind’s place in the world. The book begins by presenting the concept of people as creatures of the Earth who depend on its gifts of air, water, soil, and sun energy. The author explains how people are genetically programmed to crave the company of other species, and how people suffer enormously when they fail to live in harmony with them. Suzuki analyzes those deep spiritual needs, rooted in nature, that are a crucial component of a loving world. Drawing on his own experiences and those of others who have put their beliefs into action, The Sacred Balance is a powerful, passionate book with concrete suggestions for creating an ecologically sustainable, satisfying, and fair future by rediscovering and addressing humanity’s basic needs.

Contents

• Introduction to the Revised Edition: 1
• Prologue: 9
• born of the earth: 19
• the breath of all green things: 50
• the oceans flowing through our veins: 81
• made from the soil: 114
• protected by our kin: 183
• restoring the balance: 293
• Acknowledgements: 357

About the author

David Suzuki is an acclaimed geneticist and environmentalist, the host of The Nature of Things, and the founder and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation . He is the author of more than forty books, including Good News for a Change, From Naked Ape to Superspecies (both co-authored with Holly Dressel), The Sacred Balance (co-authored with Amanda McConnell and Adrienne Mason), and David Suzuki: The Autobiography. He is the recipient of the Unesco Kalinga Prize for Science, the United Nations Environmental Medal, the UNEP’s Global 500 award, and has been named a Companion of the Order of Canada. In addition, he holds eighteen honorary degrees and he has been adopted into three First Nations clans. Suzuki lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Amanda McConnell has written more than 100 documentary films, many of them for The Nature of Things. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature, and she writes and gardens in Toronto, Ontario.

Adrienne Mason has lived on Vancouver Island all her life and spent twenty years on the west coast, first in Bamfield and then Tofino. As well as writing a local history column for Tofino Time, she is the author of numerous books and magazine articles about science, nature, and west coast history. Her most recent titles include West Coast Adventures, The Green Classroom, and The Nature of Spiders. In the course of writing Long Beach: A Storied Stretch of Sand, Mason searched for cougar tracks with her children, found the remains of old trails and homesteads in the area, and spent many hours interviewing the people who arrived at Long Beach and never left.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
• Author: David Suzuki
• Contributors: Amanda McConnell, Adrienne Mason
• Edition: 3, revised
• Publisher: Greystone Books, 2009
• ISBN: 1926685490, 9781926685496
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection