Unlearn, Rewild

Miles Olson has spent the past decade deeply immersed in learning and practicing earth skills; living intimately with the land on the forested edge of a sprawling city. While foraging, hunting, gardening, and gathering for his livelihood, his life has been shaped profoundly by a desire to nurture healthy relationships with humans and the non-human world. Miles' experiences have put him at the forefront of the rewilding movement, radical self-reliance, and the impact of civilization on the natural world.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction Part One: Ideas1. Sustainability and Wildness 2. What is Rewilding? 3. Subsistence 4. Technology, Ethics and Freedom 5. How to Walk Away from Civilization 6. Reflections at the End of the World 7. On Being White 8. Veganism or Radical Sustainability? Tough Questions About Diet 9. Something in the Rain 10. Succession 11. Killing the Most Beautiful Thing Part Two: Endangered Skills12. Learning How to Live 13. Honoring the Bodies of Animals — By Eating Them 14. Feral Food Preservation: Unconventional and Traditional Methods of Putting Things By 15. Meet Your New Friends: Indispensable Plant Allies for Hard Times 16. Feral Food Cultivation: Thoughts and Strategies on "Tending the Wild"17. Hunter-Gatherer, Gardener-Trapper 18. Dressing and Undressing Our Food: How to Skin and Gut a Creature 19. De-Industrializing Contraception: Birth Control for Sustainability and Survival 20. Working with Skin 21. Getting to Know Nuts 22. Exploring Entomophagy: Bugs as Food 23. Fire and Light 24. The Tao of Poo: Notes on "Giving Back"Conclusion: The Future Primitive Index About the Author

Miles Olson is a true radical; that is, he gets to the root of the problem--which is that we have cut ourselves off from our own innate wildness and are busily trying to domesticate a planet that has a will of its own. The only real solution is to return to a wilder and simpler existence. Olson's pure, clear voice helps us get grounded and get started. ---Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute, and author of The End of Growth Unlearn, Rewild is an extraordinary and unconventional survival guide. Olson provides a hands-on manual to break free from enslavement to jobs, bills, and the trap of civilization to rediscover one's true nature. --Thomas J. Elpel, author of Participating in Nature Miles Olson has asked the all-important but often ignored question about sustainability: what kind of world do we wish to sustain? He then tears up some popular delusions about getting there. -- Samuel Thayer, author of The Forager's Harvest Do the terms "human monoculture," "technology trap" or "ecocide" resonate with you? Are you going broke but want to live well? Does living outside the system appeal to you? Take this book, written by a professional dropout/escape artist, as you make your own escape. Along with philosophy (for attitude adjustment) it covers scavenging road kill, which grubs are good to eat and most everything else you need to know to go feral safely and in style. ---Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse and The Five Stages of Collapse