Why am I passionate about this?

Officially a professional philosopher, author of fifteen books and textbooks on a wide range of subjects including ethics, critical and creative thinking, social change, and teaching. Wikipedia calls them “unconventional”, but honestly I prefer the ad copy for my own modest ecotopian book, which calls me a philosophical provocateur. My green credentials start with growing up in the Wisconsin countryside under the distant influence of both Frank Lloyd Wright and Aldo Leopold; later, long wilderness trips intertwined with edgy environmental philosophizing (you need some real edges for that!); and over the last decade the endlessly consuming project of designing and building Common Ground Ecovillage in the Piedmont of North Carolina.


I wrote

Mobilizing the Green Imagination: An Exuberant Manifesto

By Anthony Weston,

Book cover of Mobilizing the Green Imagination: An Exuberant Manifesto

What is my book about?

Beyond today’s desperate attempts to “green” the status quo could lie far more inventive and inviting ecological visions. Imagine cities…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Ecotopia

Anthony Weston Why did I love this book?

Philosopher Ernest Callenbach’s novel originated the ecotopia genre as well as the term itself, pioneering many green ideas, even as basic as sustainability: Callenbach called it “steady-state society”, and imagined some of the radical forms it might take (they’re still radical, alas), weaving them together into a story that is occasionally cringe-worthy (in hindsight, you know) but nonetheless paints a compelling and informative picture of an alternative, thoroughly environmentalist society.

PS. Will Weston, the protagonist, is no relation... though that was my grandfather’s name...

By Ernest Callenbach,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Ecotopia as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twenty years have passed since Northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the United States to create a new nation, Ecotopia. Rumors abound of barbaric war games, tree worship, revolutionary politics, sexual extravagance. Now, this mysterious country admits its first American visitor: investigative reporter Will Weston, whose dispatches alternate between shock and admiration. But Ecotopia gradually unravels everything Weston knows to be true about government and human nature itself, forcing him to choose between two competing views of civilization.Since it was first published in 1975, Ecotopia has inspired readers throughout the world with its vision of an ecologically and socially…


Book cover of Dreaming the Biosphere

Anthony Weston Why did I love this book?

The picture turns complex and darker with this detailed and utterly fascinating history of the cult (not to mince words) behind the conception and construction of the fabled and (sort of) failed Biosphere 2 in the red desert (could have been Mars) near Tucson, as well as its first (and it turned out only) 2-year “mission”. Guess what is Biosphere 1? And to what extent this multi-billion-dollar experimental human-inhabited terrarium was a trial run for escape from it?

By Rebecca Reider,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Dreaming the Biosphere as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Biosphere rises from southern Arizona's high desert like a bizarre hybrid spaceship and greenhouse. Packed with more than 3,800 carefully selected plant, animal, and insect species, this mega-terrarium is one of the world's most biodiverse, lush, and artificial wildernesses. Only recently transformed from an abandoned ghost dome to a University of Arizona research center, the site was the setting of a grand drama about humans and ecology at the end of the twentieth century.

The seeds of Biosphere 2 sprouted in the 1970s at Synergia, a desert ranch in New Mexico where John Allen and a handful of dreamers united…


Book cover of Climate: A New Story

Anthony Weston Why did I love this book?

Eisenstein argues for an environmentalism ultimately of love, in place of the current preoccupation with climate change and carbon emissions and putting down the “deniers”... who might actually have a few good points. The shareable and tender common ground behind all of this is the living and maybe even sentient Earth that so many people, on all sides of today’s bitter contentions, achingly remember – some woods or stream from their youth, some tree they loved and climbed daily, later unceremoniously removed in the name of “progress” – or might allow themselves to love if they themselves did not feel just as trashed just as it is. All of this heartlessness must be – and can be – healed together.

By Charles Eisenstein,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Climate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A stirring case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction
 
With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight” mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier’s point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right—not simply…


Book cover of Arcology: The City in the Image of Man

Anthony Weston Why did I love this book?

Architect-philosopher Paolo Soleri writes in an oracular style introducing his way-outsized book of designs for hyper-dense, concrete-megastructure cities in the deserts or oceans or even in space, none actually realized except for a very small prototype called “Arcosanti” in the high plateaus north of Phoenix, a campus that could have been built in a summer by a middle-sized reinforced-concrete contractor but in fact has been slowly erected by trainee-volunteers and a diehard community of followers over the last half-century. But there is something to it. “Tightly-woven minimalist packages will become mandatory.” I recommend the tabloid-sized original edition: it fits the buildings.

By Paolo Soleri,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Arcology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This edition contains all the text and illustrations found in the giant Arcology, photographically reduced somewhat to allow a lower price and enhanced handleability.

"In the three-dimensional city, man defines a human ecology. In it he is a country dweller and metropolitan man in one. By it the inner and the outer are at 'skin' distance. He has made the city in his own image. Arcology: the city in the image of man."
—Paolo Soleri


Book cover of Genesis: An Epic Poem of the Terraforming of Mars

Anthony Weston Why did I love this book?

How many times have I reread it? Science/futurist fiction in the style of an Odyssey-scale and -style epic poem about (yes) the terraforming of Mars, a spectacular interplanetary saga framed against the background of the struggle against a misanthropic and authoritarian “Ecotheism” that has taken over Earth, and ending with a long and compelling hymn to the result, a new start on our transformed sister planet. Ecotopia, in short... on Mars!

By Frederick Turner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Genesis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Originally published in 1988, Genesis was the first major work of fiction that addressed the idea of terraforming Mars. It not only suggested the idea, but provided a feasible solution for doing so. During its initial publication, Genesis was on the list of recommended reading at NASA, and has since gone on to enjoy cult status. Its acknowledged list of admirers includes such literary luminaries as Brian Aldiss, Amy Clampitt, Arthur C. Clarke, Thomas M. Disch, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet, James Merrill. It is with great pride that Ilium Press brings this influential and prescient work…


Explore my book 😀

Mobilizing the Green Imagination: An Exuberant Manifesto

By Anthony Weston,

Book cover of Mobilizing the Green Imagination: An Exuberant Manifesto

What is my book about?

Beyond today’s desperate attempts to “green” the status quo could lie far more inventive and inviting ecological visions. Imagine cities that welcome the rising winds and waters. Imagine ways of building that keep us close to other creatures and the seasons and the stars, rather than cut us off from them. Decentralized work, artful infill and semi-self-sufficient small-scale communities can facilitate life in place – no more massive transportation infrastructure! No more trash, either: instead, many things can be “dematerialized”, others made to keep forever...  or to turn into fertilizer overnight. And why not a green space program? I believe that much of the reason for today’s unwillingness to recognize and respond to the ecological emergency is that many people cannot even begin to envision any kind of appealing or livable alternative world. What opens up if the possibilities turn out to be wonderful?

You might also like...

The Yamanaka Factors

By Jed Henson,

Book cover of The Yamanaka Factors

Jed Henson Author Of All In

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Reader Dad Outdoorsman Space cowboy Curious

Jed's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Fall 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical company: “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug, and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your body will be youthened to twenty-three years old.”

When his treatment proves more difficult than expected, and corporate espionage turns deadly, Mickey finds himself flanked by internal corruption and powerful external enemies, including Chinese operatives desperate to reverse their country’s aging demographics and amoral U.S. government officials who fear the…

The Yamanaka Factors

By Jed Henson,

What is this book about?

Fall 2028. Mickey Cooper, an elderly homeless man, receives an incredible proposition from a rogue pharmaceutical company: “Be our secret guinea pig for our new drug and we’ll pay you life-changing money, which you’ll be able to enjoy because if (cough) when the treatment works, two months from now your body will be youthened to twenty-three years old.”

When his treatment proves more difficult than expected and corporate espionage turns deadly, Mickey finds himself flanked by internal corruption and powerful external enemies, including Chinese operatives desperate to reverse their country’s aging demographics and amoral U.S. government officials who fear the…


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