Overview

'A nuanced invitation to see the city as a place of wild co-existence and possibility.' OLIVIA LAING 'Meticulously researched and elegantly written' VICTORIA BENNETT While it's easy to think of the city as a human domain - a place that belongs to us alone - the reality is that nature is always present, always finding ways to thrive, even in the most unexpected places. From the remarkable adaptation of birds to the fearless resilience of mammals, there are stories from across the globe that attest to the growing realisation that nature is abundant in our cities - and it is time to discover a new way of living with it. Through her experience of cities, from London to Nairobi, San Francisco to New Delhi, anthropologist JC Niala is perfectly placed to offer a luminous exploration of city life - and ask what it means to live with nature rather than simply in it. Combining memoir, social history, and cultural commentary, JC celebrates nature in our cities and, by doing so, offers a powerful vision of the future where we can all belong. PRAISE FOR JC Niala: 'Moving and beautiful' - Robert MacFarlane

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9781856755863

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Reviews

Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The New Eden spans centuries and continents to reveal the intricate ways our human stories intertwine with the wild, and asks us to look more deeply at the spaces we inhabit - to consider what is overlooked, what grows at the edges of things. Throughout, JC Niala skilfully and tenderly weaves together history, memory, and ecology into a beautifully expansive act of care, reminding us that 'if nature keeps reaching for the light through the cracks in the pavement, then so can we'. An inspiring and important book. -- Victoria Bennett, author of All My Wild Mothers, and curator of the Wild Women Writers’ Salons

Original, profound and wise, this book is rich with knowledge and vitality -- Jay Griffiths, author of HOW ANIMALS HEAL US JC Niala skilfully and tenderly weaves together history, memory, and ecology into a beautifully expansive act of care, reminding us that 'if nature keeps reaching for the light through the cracks in the pavement, then so can we' . . . An inspiring and important book. -- Victoria Bennett, author of ALL MY WILD MOTHERS, and curator of the Wild Women Writers’ Salons The New Eden illustrates how we are all integral and entangled, and each of us with the capacity for something better, as we develop a more cohesive understanding of the natural world, and our role within it. -- Louise Kenward, editor of MOVING MOUNTAINS Seamlessly combines the intricacies of the personal with an overarching world view of a natural world that is all around us - a love letter to nature but not the kind seen at a distance, but that which exists in kissing distance. -- Natasha Carthew, author of UNDERCURRENT Profound, joyful, quietly radical and moving, The New Eden challenges the colonial inheritance of what it means to belong to and care for the earth we are all born onto, and turns us in a new and hopeful direction. -- Nicola Chester, author of ON GALLOWS DOWN The New Eden is both wonderfully lyrical and precise, woven with poetic encounters and feminist narratives of resistance. It reminds us that 'nature will thrive in the most unexpected places,' and that the divide between what we perceive as wild and urban is porous, with nature achieving a harmonious balance that is also reflected in Niala's stunning writing itself. -- Alycia Pirmohamed, poet

Author Information

JC Niala is an award-winning writer, environmental historian and anthropologist specialising in human-nature interactions. JC works as the Deputy Director and Head of Research, Teaching and Collections at the History of Science Museum, University of Oxford. She has also been on BBC's 'The Conversation' and 'Thinking Allowed', and she wrote and narrated the nature podcast series 'The Root of the Matter' with Wellcome Collection. She has appeared on panels at The Garden Museum, London, The Old Fire Station in Oxford and participated in the Edinburgh International Book Festival (where she interviewed Olivia Laing), as well as Chiswick Book Festival and Chelsea History Festival. JC lives in Oxford and Nairobi - and has lived in other cities including London and San Francisco.

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