A01=Robert L. Thayer
Author_Robert L. Thayer
bioregional movement
bioregionalism
california
case study
Category=AMV
Category=RNK
environmental studies
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fauna and flora
indigenous peoples
local agriculture
local economies
local geography
local living
local residents
modern lives
natural living
natural world
nonfiction
place history
putah cache watershed
regional ecology
regional history
sacramento valley
social and cultural
sustainable business
sustainable living
textbooks
work and play
working locally
Product details
- ISBN 9780520236288
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 22 Apr 2003
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Robert Thayer brings the concepts and promises of the growing bioregional movement to a wide audience in a book that passionately urges us to discover 'where we are' as an antidote to our rootless, stressful modern lives. "LifePlace" is a provocative meditation on bioregionalism and what it means to live, work, eat, and play in relation to naturally, rather than politically, defined areas. In it, Thayer gives a richly textured portrait of his own home, the Putah-Cache watershed in California's Sacramento Valley, demonstrating how bioregionalism can be practiced in everyday life. Written in a lively anecdotal style and expressing a profound love of place, this book is a guide to the personal rewards and the social benefits of reinhabiting the natural world on a local scale. In "LifePlace", Thayer shares what he has learned over the course of thirty years about the Sacramento Valley's geography, minerals, flora, and fauna; its relation to fire, agriculture, and water; and its indigenous people, farmers, and artists.
He shows how the spirit of bioregionalism springs from learning the history of a place, from participating in its local economy, from living in housing designed in the context of the region. He asks: How can we instill a love of place and knowledge of the local into our education system? How can the economy become more responsive to the ecology of region? This valuable book is also a window onto current writing on bioregionalism, introducing the ideas of its most notable proponents in accessible and highly engaging prose. At the same time that it gives an entirely new appreciation of California's Central Valley, "LifePlace" shows how we can move toward a new way of being, thinking, and acting in the world that can lead to a sustainable, harmonious, and more satisfying future.
Robert L. Thayer, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture in the Department of Environmental Design at the University of California at Davis. He is the author of Gray World, Green Heart: Technology, Nature and the Sustainable Landscape (1994).
