“Charles Darwin’s theory of "survival of the fittest" introduced a competitive mindset about nature—the strongest survive at the expense of the weak. In Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Nature Is More Cooperative Than We Think, author Kristin Ohlson offers a different model, one of mutual support. Those plants and animals that are allowed to live in a spirit of mutualism—you help me, I’ll help you—are the ones who thrive.
“At last, soil has been included in the conversation about food. And you don’t need a degree in soil sciences to see how the web of life below the surface that infuses soil—is soil—is strongly affected by the various webs of life that occur aboveground, for better and worse. . . . This book is eminently readable, well-researched, and important.”
“I was barely a dozen pages into The Soil Will Save Us when I felt the ground shifting under my feet—the literal ground, as in the composition of the rich humus of old-growth forests compared to the exhausted, scorched, and ruined ancient fields of global farming—and the psychic ground…. This is a remarkable book, which tells—with a light touch and a breezy, readable manner—a story of modern science of the most crucial importance.”
“On the long list of things we have to do to fight climate change, learning to pay attention to soil again is near the top. It’s not just dirt, it’s not just something that holds plants upright—as this book points out, it’s pretty damned vital.”
“This will surely be called an important book. Ohlson conveys her information in the lively manner of writers such as Michael Pollan and Rowan Jacobsen, making complicated ideas easily accessible to the reader, so that we see the ground at our feet not as dead dirt but rather as, in her words, a “coral reef” teeming with life, a ‘massive biological machine’ on which the health of our species depends. We’re lucky to have this account.”
"The Soil Will Save Us is a convincing argument that those of us who care about the environment have to start from the ground up—that is, if we are going to give a better world to our grandchildren, we're going to have to develop a deep interest in dirt. Fortunately, all you need to become fascinated by dirt is a book like this, which reveals just how intricate and important it is."
