Stewardship and the Future of the Planet: Promise and Paradox [Paperback]

This volume examines historical views of stewardship that have sometimes allowed humans to ravage the earth as well as contemporary and futuristic visions of stewardship that will be necessary to achieve pragmatic progress to save life on earth as we know it.

The idea of stewardship  human responsibility to tend the Earth  has been central to human cultures throughout history, as evident in the Judeo-Christian Genesis story of the Garden of Eden and in a diverse range of parallel tales from other traditions around the world. Despite such foundational hortatory stories about preserving the earth on which we live, humanity in the Anthropocene is nevertheless currently destroying the planet with breathtaking speed.

Much research on stewardship today  in the disciplines of geography, urban studies, oceans research, and green business practice  offers insights that should help address the ecological challenges facing the planet. Simultaneous scholarship in the humanities and other fields reminds us that the damage done to the planet has often been carried out in the name of tending the land. In order to make progress in environmental stewardship, scholars must speak to each other across the disciplinary boundaries, as they do in this volume.

Introduction: The Contradictory Inflections of Stewardship  Part I: Human Self-Perception and Misperception  1. Stewardship and Sense of Place: Assumptions and Ideals  2. I Was Under No Necessity of Seeking My Bread : Robinson Crusoe and the Stewardship of Resources in Eighteenth-Century England  3. Stewardship in American Literature: Promise and Paradox in the New World  Part II: Dystopic Visions of Past, Present, and Future  4. Monstrous Stewardship and the Plantation in Charles Chesnutts The Goophered Grapevine &l£¬