This page gives links to all books by Alastair McIntosh that are in print, the most recent listed first. Click on either the cover or on "more..." for full details, reviews, extracts and purchasing options.
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Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and Indigenous Approaches
(Ashgate, 2012), edited by Lewis Williams, Rose Roberts and
Alastair McIntosh. In April 2008 while speaking at an event of public
health authorities and First Nations peoples at the University of
Saskatchewan, I was coincidentally approached by Ashgate to edit a human
ecology scholarly collection. Knowing the work involved I could not take
on being lead editor, but my Canadian hosts became interested. Their
conference provided a nucleus for the contents. Together, with enormous
credit to Lewis as lead editor and to Rose closely supporting her, we
pulled this off. I'm sorry it's such a costly academic book. Please ask
your library to order - that will help Ashgate get it into paperback -
but
if you email I can send PDF offprints of my personal contributions.
More... From the Foreword by Richard J. Borden, Rachel Carson Chair in Human Ecology, College of the Atlantic and Society for Human Ecology: 'Below the clamor of a bustling world, this volume imparts the seeds of a radical alternative for human ecology. They lie beneath the surface: amid the whispered voices at the margin, in the praxis of traditional spirituality, along the dusty road of post-modernism, and from the ivy halls of science. This is not the human ecology of a prehistoric fireside or an academic symposium. It is an unconventional and timely pedagogy of hope.' |
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Rekindling Community: Connecting People, Environment and Spirituality (Green Books, 2008). This book is No. 15 in the Schumacher Briefing series of the Schumacher Society. My own narrative is supplemented with boxed contributions from a dozen of my colleagues and former students whose research at the Centre for Human Ecology was sponsored by WWF International. Our passion was to explore underlying dynamics of rural and urban community regeneration. This illustrated book makes the case that the community we must seek to reconstitute is more than merely society. It is a three-way relationship - with one another, with nature, and with the spiritual ground of all being. More .... |
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Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition (Birlinn, 2008). Selected by Radio 4's Open Book as one of the 2 best books on climate change, this is in many ways the sequel to Soil and Soul. But while Soil and Soul dealt with themes that became very good news, the scenario for tackling climate change looks much darker. Part 1 of the book tackles the science and politics of global warming, summarising what is known and exploring the controversies. But the most distinctive contribution comes in Part 2. Here I take the reader on a journey of deepening magical realism. I attempt to unpack the cultural history, psychology and spirituality that underlies climate change and in so doing I seek to shed insight on the human condition. By exploring the deep causes, deep solutions tentatively emerge - these being put forward in the 12-step programme that makes up the final chapter. I found Hell and High Water a terribly difficult book to write. It left me at a loss to find cause for outward optimism. And yet, a strange inner joy emerged in the writing. I ended up deepening my sense of hope for humankind. I'm thrilled that some reviewers seem to have experienced similarly. More ... |
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Love and Revolution: Collected Poetry (Luath Press, 2006). This is my collected poetry. It expresses the inner fire of what has directed and sustained my work. More ... |
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Chronique d'une Alliance: Peuples autochtones et société civile face à la mondialisation (Editions Yves Michel, 2005). This is Soil and Soul in slightly abridged French translation. The English title didn't translate well into French, and the chosen title focuses on the "alliance" between French and Scottish campaigners that contributed to the the book's main storylines. The subtitle is maybe more explicit as to content: "Indigenous peoples and civil society in the face of globalisation." More ... And for more of my work that's in foreign translation, click here. |
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Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power (Aurum Press, 2001, 2004). I think that I will always consider this book to be my masterpiece. On the surface, it tells such stories as growing up in Lewis, land reform on Eigg and the campaign that stopped the Harris superquarry. But the real message of the book, and the reason why it has sold into 5 figures, is much deeper and wider. I use the factual campaign stories as a carrier to express the deeper story of our times - the struggle of the human spirit to shine, the imperative of making community, the recovery of a credible spirituality. It's an entirely factual book and yet much of its poetic impact derives from real-life magical realism. I've tried to touch some of the deepest hopes and possibilities within us all. I love this book. It took me out of myself, into my culture, and far beyond both. More ... |
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Healing Nationhood: Essays on Spirituality, Place and Community (Curlew Productions, 2000). This pulls together work that I undertook on identity, belonging and place as part of a three year programme, Action for Transformation, that was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The main essay comprising the bulk of the book is "Land, Power and National Identity", commissioned by the Economics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences and theologians at the Holy Trinity Sergiev Monastery near Moscow. I was invited by them to speak about the spirituality of land reform and its possible relevance to Russia in February 2000. I had only 2 weeks in which to write the Russian piece, and it has since found more refined expression in Soil and Soul, though the opening pages on bardic politics are still worth reading. As the book will soon be out of print, I have now listed the entire contents online. More ... |
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My Articles etc. |
Nearly all of my published articles, academic and otherwise, are online. Click as appropriate for the Chronological index of articles, for the Classified index of articles, for Letters to the press and for BBC Radio Scotland Thought for the Day. Occasionally I post to my website other people's work that I consider very important but which is otherwise hard to access. These articles/images are intended mainly for my students and are listed at third party resources. |
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Out of Print Books |
Sometimes websites such as Amazon list as "books" publications of mine that were actually pamphlets or occasional papers. Where this is the case, a web version will be found in the publications section of my website (see below). Two that are books out of print (both co-authored) are, A Basic PR Guide for Charities (Directory of Social Change, 1985) and Marketing: a Handbook for Charities (Directory of Social Change, 1984). These can still be obtained second hand from internet sites. Also, Amazon (as linked here) has them scanned for "look inside" access, so a few pages at a time can be read in that way. Note that some parts are out of date, on some issues I have since modified my views (given that charity managerialism and fundraising techniques have sometimes gone beyond efficiency and into the realm of manipulation), but otherwise, much that is in them remains relevant. These books are also of some historical interest since they were, as far as we were aware, the first such books on marketing and PR for NGOs in the UK. |
1 Dec 08