Bøger af M. D. Usher

In the spirit of E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, a dazzling and revelatory exploration of what ancient ideas and ways of living can teach us about creating a more sustainable worldHow should we think and live in a world facing environmental catastrophe? In this urgent, original, and wide-ranging book, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher brings together ancient, indigenous, and modern ideas about how to live in this world and describes how we might begin to reconnect with Nature and heal our damaged planet and lives. The ancients were close to Nature, the source of their survival, in ways that most of us can scarcely conceive of today, and ancient philosophy often argues that humans should follow Nature's lead. Usher makes the case that Nature's resilience can serve as a model for our own responses to climate trauma and all the other harms caused by modern lifestyles. Drawing on philosophy, science, economics, art, literature, history, and religion, Following Nature's Lead is both an indictment of human overreach and a celebration of human ingenuity and the adaptability of Nature. Here, Plato meets German biologist Jakob von Uexküll, Lucretius illuminates King Lear, and Diogenes the Cynic crosses swords with Henry Thoreau. Filled with vital and inspiring insights, Following Nature's Lead shows how the ancients can help teach us to live in accordance with Nature-and why it's essential for human survival that we learn to do so without delay.

"Drawing on ancient writers, from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and working farmer, Mark Usher compiles in this book an anthology of Greco-Roman passages illustrating how they thought about animals and illuminating they might help us to rethink our relationships with them."--

What makes poetry effective? How does a poem work? What are its goals and aims?Taking his cue from the musical form of mashup, in POEM M. D. Usher has composed what is known as a cento, stitching together snippets from famous poems in such a way that the words of the text illustrate the aspect of poetry being described. A lively introduction and short, irreverent biographies of the featured poets add to the fun.In T. Motley's artwork, Word literally becomes Flesh, as letters emerge like epiphanies from the drawings.POEM is a unique achievement that stands in relation to canonical poetry as Disney's film, Fantasia, stands to classical music-first of its kind, something for all ages, and well worth experiencing again and again.

Apuleius¿s comic masterpiece, originally composed in the second century A.D., traces the hilarious misadventures of a young man a tad too curious about magic for his own good. Hoping to change himself into an owl, he turns himself into a donkey instead, and in this guise is sold, stolen, or otherwise shunted from one master to the next. Along the way, he sees the underbelly of the sprawling Roman Empire, with its saints and villains, its venal merchants and greedy priests, until he¿s transformed back to human form via divine intervention.M. D. Usher¿s creative adaptation brings the tale alive ¿for young readers of all ages.¿ Classical scholars will admire its faithfulness and its clever innovations, while new readers¿young and old¿will enjoy its freshness and accessibility. Motley¿s lively, thoroughly contemporary drawings capture the boisterous, see-sawing plot.