Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace

"A leading voice in struggles for global justice, Vandana Shiva is a world renowned environmental activist and physicist. With Earth Democracy, her most extensive treatment of the struggles she helped bring to international attention - genetic food engineering, cultural theft, and natural resource privatization - Shiva uncovers their link to the rising tide of fundamentalisms, violence against women, and planetary death. Starting in the 16th century with the initial enclosure of the British commons, Shiva reveals how the commons continue to shrink as more natural resources are patented and privatized. As our ecological sustainability and cultural diversity erode, so too is human life rendered disposable. Through the forces of neoliberal globalization, economic and social exclusion ignite violence across lines of difference, threatening the lives of millions. Yet these brutal extinctions are not the only trend shaping human history. Struggles on the streets of Seattle and Cancún and in homes and farms across the world, have yielded a set of principles based on inclusion, nonviolence, reclaiming the commons, and freely sharing the earth's resources. These ideals, which Shiva calls Earth Democracy, serve as an urgent call to peace and as the basis for a just and sustainable future." -- Provided by publisher.