Introduction - Shades of Green;
Chapter One - The Myriad-Minded Environmentalist Rabindranath Tagore;
Chapter Two - Ecological Sociologist - The Work and Legacy of Radhakamal Mukerjee;
Chapter Three - Gandhi's Economist J.C. Kumarappa and Rural Renewal;
Chapter Four - Scottish Internationalist Patrick Geddes and Ecological Town Planning in India;
Chapter Five - Dissenting Scientists Albert and Gabrielle Howard and the Ouest for an Ecological Agriculture;
Chapter Six - Gandhi's Englishwoman The Passionate Environmentalism of MadeleinelMira;
Chapter Seven - Culture in Nature The Forest Anthropology of Verrier Elwin;
Chapter Eight - The First Hindutva Environmentalist K.M. Munshi;
Chapter Nine - Speaking for Nature M. Krishnan and Indian Wildlife;
Epilogue - A Partially Usable Past?;
Acknowledgements;
Notes;
Index.

By the canons of orthodox social science, countries like India are not supposed to have an environmental consciousness. They are, as it were, 'too poor to be green'. In this deeply researched book, Ramachandra Guha challenges this narrative by revealing a virtually unknown prehistory of the global movement set far outside Europe or America. Long before the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and well before climate change gained currency as a term, ten remarkable individuals wrote with deep insight about the dangers of environmental abuse from within an Indian context. In strikingly contemporary language, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakamal Mukerjee, J.C. Kumarappa, Patrick Geddes, Albert and Gabrielle Howard, Mira, Verrier Elwin, K.M. Munshi and M. Krishnan wrote about the forest and the wild, soil and water, urbanization and industrialization. Positing the idea of what Guha calls 'livelihood environmentalism' in contrast to the 'full-stomach environmentalism' of the affluent world, these writers, activists and scientists played a pioneering role in shaping global conversations about humanity's relationship with nature.
Spanning more than a century of Indian history and decidedly transnational in reference, Speaking with Nature offers rich resources for considering the threat of climate change today.