The author of Captive State, Heat, The Age of Consent and Amazon Watershed, George Monbiot is one of the world's most celebrated radical thinkers. In Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding, he follows his own hunger for new environmental experiences, and through a riveting tale of possibility and travel with wildlife and wild people, shows why we need to change our policies in order to properly cherish the wild and our experience of it. This is a book that explodes with wonder and delight. Making use of some remarkable scientific discoveries, which transform our understanding of how natural systems work, George Monbiot explores a new, positive environmentalism, which shows how damaged ecosystems on land and at sea can be restored, and how this restoration can revitalise and enrich our own lives.
Challenging his own ecological boredom, Monbiot weaves together a beautiful and riveting tale of wild places, wildlife and wild people. Roaming the hills of Britain and the forests of Europe, kayaking off the coast of Wales with dolphins and seabirds, he seeks out the places which still possess something of the untamed spirit he would like to resurrect. He meets people trying to restore lost forests and bring back missing species, such as wolves, lynx, wolverines, wild boar and gray whales. This process of rewilding, Monbiot argues, offers an alternative to a silent spring: the chance of a raucous summer, in which ecological processes resume and humans draw closer to the natural world.
George Monbiot is one of the world's most influential radical thinkers. Celebrated for both their originality and the depth of their research, his Guardian columns are syndicated all over the world. His website – www.monbiot.com – receives a quarter of a million hits a month. He is the author of the bestselling books Captive State, The Age of Consent, Bring on the Apocalypse and Heat, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. Among the many prizes he has won is the UN Global 500 award for outstanding environmental achievement, presented to him by Nelson Mandela.
"Captivating. Will change the way you think about the natural world, and your place in it."
– Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
"Feral has really opened my mind to the history and possibilities of our landscape. It reflects a very real need in us all right now to be released from our claustrophobic monoculture and sense of powerlessness. To break the straight lines into endless branches. To free our land from its absent administrators. To rewild both the landscape and ourselves. It is the most positive and daring environmental book I have read. In order to change our world you have to be able to see a better one. I think George has done that"
– Thom Yorke
"Part personal journal, part rigorous [and riveting] natural history, but above all unbridled vision for a less cowed. more self-willed planet, this is a book that will change the way you think about the natural world, and your place in it. Big, bold and beautifully written, his vision of a rewilded world is, well, truly captivating"
– Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
"The world knows George Monbiot mostly from his powerful and perceptive journalism. But this is a whole different order of writing and thinking, a primal account of an unstifled world"
– Bill McKibben
"George Monbiot is always original – both in the intelligence of his opinions and the depth and rigour of his research. In this unusual book he presents a persuasive argument for a new future for the planet, one in which we consciously progress from just conserving nature to actively rebuilding it"
– Brian Eno
"A Book of Revelations for our times"
– Farley Mowat