Mulcahy Conway Associates

Eco-Republic: Ancient Thinking For A Green Age

Climate change and sustainability are the issues du jour, and they are not likely to go off the agenda any time soon. In this age of competing politics and policies, with limited resources and often limited will to make change, what can we learn from ancient wisdom and philosophy to humankind's benefit? Climate change and sustainability are not just technical problems or problems in applied ethics: they require a new political imagination, which this book illuminates. Professor Melissa Lane identifies key messages - on the role of the individual, the household, the nature of citizenship, and the significance of the imagination - which bring the wisdom of the past to bear on the challenges of the present. Using these resources, and building on these insights this book is a call to action from the past, to a present understanding of political thought and ethical wellbeing. Drawing on Plato's Republic as a model while also challenging aspects of Platonic politics, the book sets out the political and psychological challenges that we face in moving beyond the psycho-political settlement of modern commercial society.

Reviews

"Lane makes a compelling case that the Greek vices of pleonexia (overreaching desire for more than one's share) and hubris (arrogance against natural order) need to be disparaged with the same vigor today as they were by the ancients. . . . Eco-Republic offer(s) important intellectual provocation to reevaluate current inertia on environmental policy. Whether or not Plato may be our guide on these matters, the roles of science and the humanities in grappling with ecological urgency deserve to be deliberated."

Saleem H. Ali, Science

"This is a remarkable book. Lane takes one of the most urgent practical problems of our age and shows how it is the intellectual resources not of modern but of ancient philosophy that provide us with the best way of thinking about it. A virtuoso performance by one of our best scholars of ancient philosophy, Eco-Republic elevates the discussion of the moral and political questions surrounding environmentalism to a completely new level."

Richard Tuck, Harvard University

"Climate change is a modern problem caused by technology that the ancients could not have fathomed. But can classical Greek ideas teach us anything about how to fix our flawed approach to the environment? Lane masterfully draws on Plato's dialogues to help us rethink the politics and social ethos that have endangered our natural world. The result is a major accomplishment that is at once rigorous, engaging, and relevant."

Corey Brettschneider, author of Democratic Rights: The Substance of Self-Government

"Melissa Lane has produced a fascinating and mind-stretching argument for change. Become more sustainable, she argues, not because you ought to, but because it makes you glorious. Eco-Republic is refreshing and exciting"

Matt Arnold, leader of Sustainable Business Solutions, PricewaterhouseCoopers

"Eco-Republic seeks to refashion the political imagination toward a more environmentally sustainable way of life. Lane draws on ancient thought, and on Plato in particular, to make imaginable the sort of political subjectivity that she sees as necessary to developing sustainable lifestyles and a concomitant politics. This focus on our collective imagination is a significant reorientation of political theory itself."

Danielle S. Allen, Institute for Advanced Study

"This is a provocative and powerful book. Lane recommends the ethical vision of Greek antiquity rather than a society of individuals following legal rules. Such a vision is, Lane argues, a sustainable one--bringing ethics, ecology, and politics together."

Justin Champion, Royal Holloway, University of London

"This is a timely book that I am sure will make an impact in both scholarly and popular circles. It argues that ethics and virtue are increasingly important reference points in the battle for sustainability. The author is commendably optimistic about the potential for an 'eco-republic.'"

Andrew Dobson, author of Green Political Thought