BOOK REVIEW Holthaus, Gary: Learning Native Wisdom: What Traditional Cultures Teach us About Subsistence, Sustainability and Spirituality

Spirituality, Gary Holthaus argues, is at the heart of the complex and related social and ecological crises that face humans. It is the key to creating a sustainable culture, and yet Holthaus observes that ‘‘I have yet to attend a meeting, lecture or workshop on sustainability that addresses it [spirituality]’’ (2008: 6). Holthaus sets out to convince his readers that this spiritual dimension is crucial for the dramatic culture changes necessary to move toward a sustainable society. As the poem from Gary Snyder that opens the book states, ‘‘In making the handle/Of an axe/By cutting wood with an axe/The model is indeed near at hand’’ (x). The ‘‘axe handles’’ that our culture has on hand as existing models of sustainability are the indigenous societies of the world. This book is one installment in a series published by the University Press of Kentucky titled Culture of the land: A series in the new Agrarianism (Norman Wirzba, ed). The series is dedicated to an interdisciplinary articulation of new agrarianism, which the editorial board suggests consists of a comprehensive worldview that foregrounds human interaction with the land. Interestingly, Holthaus approaches this new agrarianism with old tools. Most of the data in this book is nothing new: Holthaus draws from ancient indigenous wisdom, weaves it together with lessons from Confucius and Lao Tzu, peppers his stories with frequent references to his favorite poets (Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, Robinson Jeffers, and others) and notes the resonance of these ideas with deeper, spiritual understandings of sustainability. But Holthuas’s narrative ties these old stories together insightfully, with a nice rhythm, and integrates both ancient and contemporary ideas into a welcome contribution to sustainability discourse. Most importantly, the book highlights the under-appreciated centrality of spirituality to the idea of sustainability.