Thomas Weber (1) (1950–)

Having had this on my shelf as a reference/teaching resource for 30 years, I’ve revisited it with a cover to cover read.

Most of the book is a detailed and seemingly even-handed history of the Chipko movement up to 1987. Some sections are very reliant on page after page of quotes from from other published sources, but these sources would be difficult to get hold of (particularly in the pre-Internet world), and it does support the detailed laying out of the history. The Gandhian inspiration for Chipko is covered at length, and in many ways this helps convey a picture of Gandhi as key philosophical influence on the development of Green thinking and action. Weber’s concluding chapter is where he really finds his voice, and this stands alone as a great essay exploring the interconnectedness of the local and the global and of environment and development. A lot of the analysis is still very relevant.

One slight false note for me comes the acknowledgements where Weber notes that the work and research behind the book was very much a collaboration with his wife Marja Koskela, yet he has taken single authorship.… (altro)