Ecology is Permanent Economy: The Activism and Environmental Philosophy of Sun-derlal Bahuguna

摘要

Multiple fields of environmental humanities have emerged in recent decades, including a growing body of research on the varieties of environmental philosophy and activism present in religious worldviews. George James makes an important and timely contribution to such research in Ecology is Permanent Economy: The Activism and Environmental Philosophy of Sunderlal Bahuguna. The focus of the book is the life and thought of the acclaimed environmental activist, Sunderlal Bahuguna (b. 1927), whose work in his native India is deeply informed by ecological sciences, the principles of Gandhi's philosophy, as well as Hinduism and other religious traditions of India (206). That focus alone makes the book unique, as it is "the first book-length study" of Bahuguna (4). James employs a unique approach to the study of Hinduism and ecology, as it does not base its analyses on interpretations of Hindu texts, which can be "selective and misleading," but focuses on the way that Hinduism and ecology intersect in the life of a contemporary environmental activist (217).