Richard Louv

The book is fabulous. I grew up in a place where nature was never far away. We spent two weeks in the woods when I was a Boy Scout in England. After my return to my current home, I discovered we had been busy replacing trees with concrete.

Richard Louv's term, "nature-deficit disorder," is timely. As he mentioned, we study microbiology without smelling a plant or looking at an animal in its natural habitat. Our obsession with technology has taken us away from our natural roots, leaving fear in its place. We need to reclaim our connection with nature. It will make us whole again.

Richard Louv's book is a welcome reminder. It is a call. We must heed the call, and integrate the lessons into our education curriculum.… (mere)

Richard Louv's previous work made me quite excited to get an early review copy of Our Wild Calling. However, I was consistently disappointed throughout the book. Organizationally, as others have mentioned, it seemed very unfocused. Instead of each chapter clearly addressing a specific argument, it seemed like a collection of anecdotal ramblings about random human encounters with animals. Overall, in contrast to his previous work, I felt that this book was entirely too metaphysical. While he certainly mentioned scientific research it seemed to me as if it was only included after his more metaphysical positions were established.
With that said, the most glaring problems I noticed throughout the text were his references to indigenous knowledges. As an anthropologist who works with American Indians, it was hard for me to get over his stereotypical, "noble savage" perspective of indigenous groups worldwide. While I appreciated his inclusion of a Native perspective in chapter 19, it was overshadowed by inaccuracies (his claim that Lakota people believe storks are associated with babies ignoring that there are no storks living in any region remotely close to Lakota homelands) and his exploitative perspective (culturally appropriative vision quests, an actual Lakota practice, are admissible when the experience is had by a white scientist). Overall, he seems much too romantic in his understanding of indigenous perspectives on the environment and much too quick to exploit them for his own personal gain.… (mere)