LGP Adams, Douglas and Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See (London: Pan, 1991) Poignant, wonderful pics of poisonous Komodo dragon, rhinos, gorillas, very rare parrot.

LGP Bahro, Rudolf, Avoiding Social and Ecological Disaster: The Politics of World Transformation, trans. by David Clarke (Bath: Gateway, 1984 (1987 in German)) ‘[A] masterpiece of spiritual-political insight’ according to blurb. Our civilisation has created a Megamachine, Bahro says, leading to self-annihilation. Ex-communist turned Green. (Copy bristling with post-it notes.) In Outline of Theses of Book, says we have to reduce our impact to what it was 100 years ago – not enough? Very moralistic, lots on spirituality/salvation. Refers to E P Thompson 1980 essay on exterminism’ (p.19). No practicalities, nothing on land, farming, communities.

LGP Bahuguna, Sunder Lal, Echoes from the Hills: Save the Himalayan Eco-system: A Call to Humanity (Uttar Pradesh: Chipko Information Centre, [1992]) Describes vulnerability of Himalayan ecosystem, land degradation in India, hopes from Rio summit, Declaration of Save Himalaya movement.

LGP Bartimius, Paula, Eating with the Season: How to Achieve Health and Vitality by Eating in Harmony with Nature (Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element, 1998) Food basics then by seasons. Mainly vegan, avoids cow’s milk dairy, goat’s milk dairy if cannot cut out milky foods, or soya, rice and oat milk, pp.35-6.

LGP Beeston, Michael, 101 Ways to Make the Most of Your Garden (London: Dickens, 1967) Month by month guide for conventional garden.

LGP Bell, Graham, ed., Permaculture News, Autumn 1990 (Totnes: Permaculture UK, 1990) ‘Plants For A Future’, short piece re beginnings of PFAF by Ken Hennessy and Addy Morris; 1,200 species planted (p.19). Letter from me re Braziers (p.23).

LGP Bell, Graham, ed., Permaculture News, Midsummer 1990 (Totnes: Permaculture UK, 1990) A5 booklet predecessor to Permaculture Magazine. ‘Where’s the Wilderness?’ article by Patrick Whitefield on ecology and history of wilderness, woods, meadows, and implications for permaculture design (pp.9-10). ‘The City Forest’, notes by Robert Hart for TV interview with Joanathon Porritt (pp.11-12).

LGP Black, Maggie, Food & Cooking in Medieval Britain: History & Recipes (English Heritage, 1985) 47pp. Superb illustrations from the period.

LGP Brown, O. Phelps, The Complete Herbalist: or, the People Their Own Physicians by the use of Nature’s Remedies, describing the Great Curative Properties Found in the HerbalKingdom. A New and Plain System of Hygienic Principles, together with Comprehensive Essays on Sexual Philosophy, Marriage, Divorce &c. (London: Hale, 1882)

LGP Brundtland, Gro Harlem, Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) In the blurb it says most of the decision makers will be dead before the consequences of global warming etc. will be suffered by the planet! Didn’t this report give us the term ‘sustainable development’? (Chapter 2)

LGP Bunker, Sarah, et al, Diggers and Dreamers: The Guide to Communal Living, 2004-5 ( London: D&D, 2003) Entries for Braziers, Monkton Wyld Court and Redfield.

LGP Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (Harmonsworth, Middx: Penguin, 1965 (1962)) Maybe this awakened and alarmed the world, but not enough. Most memorable part is Chapter 1: A Fable for Tomorrow and the line ‘The people had done it themselves’. (I always say ‘to themselves’.) (pp.21-2)

LGP Chaitow, Leon, Stone Age Diet: The Natural Way to Eat (London: Optima, 1987) Back cover says our Stone Age ancestors were stronger and healthier than us, also our physical evolution still in that age so their diet natural to us. Includes recipes. Paleolithic diet 400mg Vitamin C daily, modern 40-60, our bodies can’t make it. (pp.82-3) We heat and spice food to reflect better flavour of ancestors’ food.

LGP Commoner, Barry, Science and Survival (New York: Viking, 1967) [copy in comment to Maddy / WiC]

LGP Dogra, Bharat, Forests, Dams and Survival in Tehri Garhwal (New Delhi: Dogra, 1992) Threats to survival of hill villages dependent on forests in Western Himalayan region.

LGP Dogra, Bharat, The Debate on Large Dams (New Delhi: Dogra, 1992) How the euphoria at ‘temples of modern India’ changed to protests at social and ecological effects, promised benefits not realised, risks of failure and distortions in the wider development path.

LGP Duncalf, William G., The Guinness Book of Plant Facts and Feats (Enfield, Middx.: Guinness, 1976) How plants work and evolved, feed and poison, and amaze.

LGP Eley, Geoffrey, 101 Wild Plants for the Kitchen (Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 1977) Intro mentions debt to early literature on plants, from 16C herbals on. Includes ground elder!

LGP Foth, Henry D., Fundamentals of Soil Science, Sixth Edition (New York: Wiley, 1978 (1958)) Soil concepts, uses and properties, soil resources, threats and conservation.

LGP Goldsmith, James, The 1992 Schumacher Lecture: Measurement or Understanding (video tape) Impressive lecture, received as hypocrisy by protesters at his activities in South America.

LGP Gradwohl, Judith and Russell Greenberg, Saving the Tropical Forests (London: Earthscan, 1988) Product of conference at Smithsonian in 1985. Forests being destroyed by poverty and greed, so no good looking to reason and logic for solutions. Describes case studies and research. Very practical and authoritative.

LGP Gribben, John, Future Weather: Carbon Dioxide, Climate and the Greenhouse Effect (sub-title on cover: The Causes and Effects of Climatic Change) (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1982) Despite age, good overview of what makes climate, ending with man made greenhouse effect warning.

LGP Hart, Robert, The Forest Garden (London: Institute for Social Inventions, 1991) Booklet, 24pp. Extract from Guardian on back cover – ‘model ... could be repeated even in a town garden’. Intro. describes fg as his ‘self-sufficiency scheme’ and ‘self-perpetuating’ and ‘self-fertilising’.

LGP Hassall, Arthur, A History of Europe Volume III, The Balance of Power, the French Revolution and Napoleon, the Nineteenth Century and After, 1740-1914 (London: Rivingtons, 1928) Described as ‘A Class Book of English History’, Terse style and structured format. No pictures.

LGP Holt, Geraldene, The Gourmet Garden: The Fruits of the Garden Transported to the Table (London: Pavilion, 1990) Pictorial tour of eight British grand gardens with recipes, which don’t use only the produce.

LGP Johnson, Stewart, Feverfew: A Traditional Herbal Remedy for Migraine and Arthritis (London: Sheldon, 1984) From ‘Overcoming Common Problems’ series, by academic doctor and very medical, despite herbal remedy. Was this my mother’s?

LGP Khan, S.I., Herbs from Your Garden: How to Grow and Use Them (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Thorsons, 1984 (1979)) Tiny book, 56 pp. Propagation needs bought compost. Refers to small scale options, down to pots on window ledges. Alphabetic long list and short one with more details growing and re uses.

LGP Lovelock, J.E., Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987 (1979)) On the idea that the earth is alive, a belief first expressed as science by James Hutton, father of Geology, in 1785: study the Earth through physiology, and Vernadsky introduced concept of biosphere.

LGP Lovelock, James, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of our Living Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) How species and their environment evolve as a single system, still by natural selection. Concerned not with threats to human life but with damage affecting the health of the Earth, need a profession of planetary medicine. Chapter on ‘God and Gaia’; most correspondence received was on religious implications of the theory. ‘Gaia is a religious as well as a scientific concept.’ (p.206)

LGP Mabey, Richard, Food for Free: A Guide to the Edible Wild Plants of Britain (Glasgow: Collins, 1972) Intro talks of modern attitude that wild foods are unnatural. Cultivated plant foods once wild. Lot of tiny drawings, some colour plates, identification not easy from these.

LGP Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, William W Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (London: Pan, 1974) From 1970 MIT study of effects of growth. Diagrams and lots of graphs, lots of post-its in eg ‘The World Model’.

LGP Mee, Arthur, ed., The King’s England, Norfolk: Green Pastures and Still Waters (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940) Alphabetical town by town, mainly on churches, nice details like bosses in roof, p.297.

LGP Mowat, R.B., A History of Europe and the Modern World 1492-1928 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1929) Oh, to know all this! Fascinating illustrations. Lists of popes and presidents, royal genealogies and chronology in back.

LGP O’Hare, Greg, Soils, Vegetation, Ecosystems: Conceptual Frameworks in Geography (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1988) Thorough ‘A’ level plus textbook.

LGP Paterson, Allen, ed., Reader’s Digest Guide to Creative Gardening (London: Reader’s Digest, 1984) A guide to the best plants and how to use them. It’s about flowers!

LGP Pratt, Simon, compiler, The Permaculture Plot 1994/5: The Guide to Permaculture in Britain (Clanfield, Hampshire: Permanent, 1994) Preface says no. of plots in guide was 7 in 1985, 33 in prev edn., 52 in this.

LGP Quennell, Marjorie & C.H.B., A History of Everyday Things in England, Volume III, 1733 to 1851 (London: Batsford, 1933) For ‘young readers’. Emphasis on farming for food and textiles, good illustrations of all kinds. Complications and rapid pace of change at industrial revolution; must be ‘very charitable’ towards the latter.

LGP Redclift, Michael, Sustainable Development: Exploring the Contradictions (London: Methuen, 1987) Degradation of environment not ‘natural’ but linked to economic and political structures. We are recreating nature to be free of environmental constraints, and destroying it.

LGP Renfrew, Jane, Food & Cooking in Prehistoric Britain: History & Recipes (English Heritage, 1985) 44pp. Intriguing slant on history of food.

LGP Russell, L.R. Ltd., [Catalogue] Autumn 1963 Spring 1964 (Windlesham, Surrey) Has order by my father inside.

LGP Seymour, John and Herbert Girardet, Far from Paradise: The Story of Man’s Impact on the Environment (London: BBC, 1986) Signed by author. Has Topsoil and Civilisation in Bibliography and starts from there. Some grim pictures. Finishes by advocating organic alternative.

LGP Thomas, William L., Jr., ed., Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth: An International Symposium under the Co-chairmanship of Carl O. Sauer, Marsden Bates and Lewis Mumford (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956) Extraordinary book. ‘The Agency of Man on the Earth’ by Carl O. Sauer very valuable, includes description of swidden (or conuco, or milpa) system very like permaculture (pp.49-69, p.57).

LGP Thun, Maria, Gardening for Life – The Biodynamic Way: A Practical Introduction to a New Art of Gardening, Sowing, Planting, Harvesting (Stroud: Hawthorne, 1999) Organic plus planetary influences. Useful properties of nettles, pp.45-7, used as compost preparation.

LGP Tierra, Michael, The Way of Herbs (Santa Cruz, California: Unity, 1980) Herbs for healing.

LGP Underwood, Peter, Ghosts of Cornwall (Bodmin, Cornwall: Bossiney, 1983) Author is President of Ghost Club – intriguing bits of local culture.

LGP Vaughan, J.G. & C.A. Geissler, The New Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford: OUP, 1997) Foreword by David Bellamy on debt we owe to indigenous people who, over 10,000 years, ‘selected, bred and cultivated the plants which feed us all’ and on loss of both cultivated varieties and of the ‘weed’ species they came from. Useful introduction. Lovely illustrations.

LGP Watkins, David, Urban Permaculture: A Practical Handbook for Sustainable Living (Clanfield, Hampshire: Permanent, 1993) Love the front cover pic with food growing on all surfaces. Intro emphasises land use aspect of pc, and richer life. Puts people and houses before food, but good when it gets to growing and gardens.

LGP Watkins, Meike & David, The Concise Book of Organic Growing and Small Livestock ( Reigate: Watkins, [n.d.]) About setting up a smallholding and more than we’d want to know on the small livestock.

LGP Williams-Ellis, Clough, ed., Britain and the Beast (London: Readers’ Union, 1938) Contributions from 26 worthies plus National Trust and CPRE on threats to the countryside. ‘Our Inheritance from the Past’ by H.J. Massingham especially good piece I scanned in for website (pp.8-31).

LGP Wilson, Peter J., The Domestication of the Human Species (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) Human evolution: the effect of settling in built environment on human psychology and social relations. (Bristling with post-its.) Aims to look at domesticated societies forward from Paleolithic point of view rather than backwards from urban society. Major modification was ability to pay attention. Not an ethnographic study. Not concerned with origins, routes of evolution in different parts of the world, but with why people built what they built, in general, to establish the theme.

LGPX Andruss, Van, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant & Eleanor Wright, eds. Home! A Bioregional Reader (Santa Cruz, CA: New Society, 1990) Articles, stories and poems of over forty writers on bioregionalism as a political philosophy and practice of “living in place”. Mostly very North American, and by the kind of people who give courses at Schumacher College. Short extract from Mollison’s Permaculture Two, and a longer one from the big Permaculture book.

LGPX Attenborough, David, The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth (London: Collins and BBC, 1984) This is very much about our wonderful world, but with a warning at the end about Mankind’s failure to accept his responsibility to manage his use of the resources of the world (p.307).

LGPX Cock, Jacklyn & Eddie Koch, eds., Going Green: People, Politics and the Environment in South Africa (Oxford: OUP, 1991) Written at a very optimistic point in South Africa’s history, when hopes for greater social equality was thought to coincide with a surge of interest in the environment. Fulfilled? Identifies a link between poverty and toxic waste dumping.

LGPX Davidson, Max, Basic Vegetable Gardening: A Complete Guide to Successful Growing (London: Marshall Cavendish, 1977) Conventional methods, digging in farmland manure, chemical fertilisers and pest and disease treatments.

LGPX Dinkele, Geoff, Stephen Cotterell & Ian Thorn, Farming: Harraps Course in Reformed Geography (London: Harrap, 1876) Innovative geography course for children with lots of information, diagrams and exercises.

LGPX Fellows, Peter & Ann Hampton, Small-Scale Food Processing: A Guide to Appropriate Equipment (London: Intermediate Technology, 1992) Science, methods and equipment of food preservation and creation of new foods such as pickles. Very thorough.

LGPX Franck, Gertrud, Companion Planting: Successful Growing the Organic Way, trans. by Transcript (London: HarperCollins, 1983) ‘A detailed guide to organic gardening, including sheet composting techniques nad making the most of beneficial plants.’

LGPX Fukuoka, Masanobu, The Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy (Tokyo: Japan, 1985) ‘Do-nothing farming: how to raise crops with no cultivation, no chemical fertilizers or herbicides, not even any added compost. (He does spread straw, irrigate, and scatter chicken pellets if available.) Philosophy based on the relatedness of human society and nature, and ‘culture is agriculture.’ Dismisses organic farming as ‘just another type of scientific farming’, and says many of its efforts to protect the natural ecology are destructive. Human civilization and misguided methods of crop cultivation have caused drying out of land and loss of vegetation worldwide, as has overgrazing by large animal herds. Natural farming is first step towards restoration of nature. Rain ‘issues forth from the ground’ unless vegetation has disappeared. ‘[I]n nature there is no cause and effect.’

LGPX Gear, Alan, Chief Executive (taken as editor), Growing Organically: The Work of the henry Doubleday Research Association ([n.p.], [1986?]) This is a brochure, with the history, gardens, projects etc. and lovely photos. Founder, Lawrence Hills named the association he founded in 1958 after Henry Doubleday, who was a 19C Quaker smallholder who introduced comfrey into Britain.

LGPX Godwin, Fay, Our Forbidden Land (London: Jonathan Cape, 1990) Author was President of the Ramblers Association from 1987 – 1990; this is a book of her photographs – some beautiful or poignant, others disturbing or ugly, some ironic or strange – of ‘the land we are no longer free to roam’.

LGPX Goudie, Andrew, The Human Impact on the Natural Environment, Third Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990) The most important book on this subject, extremely thorough and scholarly. Author is/was Professor of Geography at Oxford. One of his sources is W.L.Thomas et al. on the 1955 Symposium. Conclusion begins with ‘The power of non-industrial and pre-industrial societies’, including the crucial observation on ‘anthropogenic fire climaxes’ (p.322).

LGPX Hollis, Sarah, The Country Diary Herbal (London: Bloomsbury, 1990) Charmingly presented and illustrated, with history, A-Z and herb garden designs.

LGPX Holmgren, David, Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability ( Hepburn, Victoria, Australia: Holmgren Design Services, 2002) Back cover blurb says the book builds on the permaculture concept ‘to provide a more cerebral and controversial contribution to the sustainability debate’. The Foreword says that permaculture is about ‘values and visions, and designs and systems of management...’ and the Purpose of this Book section says it is ‘much more than a form of organic gardening’ – so it’s anything but gardening?

LGPX Mollison, Bill & David Holmgren, Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (Tyalgum, NSW, Australia, 1990 (1978)) Begins by defining permaculture as an ‘evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man ... [which] is, in essence, a complete agricultural ecosystem’ (p.1). For someone interested in permaculture as a land use revolution, this is Mollison’s best book, and the movement has been treading water for 30 years. There is a sub-section on ‘Yields’ and productivity.

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Introduction to Permaculture (Tyalgum, NSW: Tagari, 1991) In his Preface Mollison says that ‘combining architecture with biology, agriculture with forestry, and forestry with animal husbandry’ offended specialists. He says he saw permaculture in the 1970s as an assembly of plants and animals for self-reliance, but that it had become ‘a whole human system’. That is the problem, because it allows people to duck addressing their alienation from the land – and, I think, from what Marx called their ‘species being’. Then in the Introduction he says permaculture is also ‘permanent culture’. Thus permaculture became a concept rather than a practice.

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Permaculture Two: Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture (Stanley, Tasmania: Tagari, 1979) The main focus is on ‘design’, less on the specifics; is that why the drift away from the agricultural revolution, as such, occurred?

LGPX Mollison, Bill, Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1990) This is a ‘big book’, like Patrick Whitefield’s Earth Care Manual, and one doesn’t read big books from cover to cover. I constantly quote Mollison’s aims set out on p. 7, and intend to study the book properly some day.

LGPX Myers, Norman, The Gaia Atlas of Planet Management (London: Gaia Books, 1994) Revised edition of 1985 publication. More serious source that it appears from its elaborate illustrations and diagrams.

LGPX Paxton, Angela, The Food Miles Report: The Dangers of Long Distance Food Transport (London: S.A.F.E. (Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Environment) Alliance, 1994) Food and transport, increasing distances, and wider social and ecological implications. The concerns – little different from now, in 2008 – with 10 case studies and recommendations.

LGPX Richardson, Rosamond, Food from Green Places: Vegetarian Recipes from Garden and Hedgerow (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) Varied vegetable ingredients, also dairy products and eggs. Simple methods. Lovely photos, of produce and some dishes.

LGPX Rowling, Nick, Commodities: How the World was Taken to Market (London: Free Association Books, 1987) Written in conjunction with a Channel 4 TV series, and using many of its illustrations, this is a radical text on ‘how present-day patterns of global power have been established by forcing people to produce commodities (sugar, tea and coffee) for a mass market.’ A chapter entitled ‘Commodity Capitalism Today’ begins: ‘Almost everything in the present world system is potentially a commodity’ (p.155). A Marxist text then? There are three entries in the index against Marx: on the first page of the Introduction on the commodity being a queer thing (p.7), and in its last page on man’s “alienation from his species being” (p.21) and near the end on how Marx’s solution whereby ‘the crisis of capitalism’ would enable the proletariat to seize power, but that capitalism is able to deflect the class struggle (p,175).

LGPX Seymour, John, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency (London: Corgi, 1978) Very comprehensive coverage of DIY living, and daunting, but Foreword by Schumacher suggests one learns and picks and chooses. Seymour says this is going forward to a better life, and acceptance of responsibility. Requires a correct attitude to the land.

LGPX Singer, André, Battle for the Planet (London: Pan, 1987) Based on Channel 4 series. Chapters on Earth (long section on erosion), Air, Water, Forests, Wildlife, People, Food, Shelter and Arms, with Foreword by Porritt and Conclusion by Brundtland. Great, i.e. useful, pictures.

LGPX Slater, Frances, ed., People and Environments: Issues and Enquiries (London: Collins Educational, 1986) Very though Geography textbook with themed set of case studies from developed and developing world. Part II: Power, Policies and Food Production most interesting, including No. 5 is on ‘Food supplies, agricultural production and land reform: the case of Peru’, 6 on overproduction in US, 7 on Mexico, 8 on CAP, 9 on China and self-sufficiency?

LGPX Trow-Smith, Robert, Farming Through the Ages, in Pictures (Ipswich: Farming Press, 1993 (1978)) History of arable and livestock farming in Britain from 4000BC to inter-war years.

LGPX Vaughan, J.G. & C. A. Geissler, The New Oxford Book of Food Plants (Oxford: OUP, 1997) Foreword by David Bellamy re failure of fertilizer to increase yields of grains since 1990, loss of cultivars and wild ancestors. Starting point for PFAF database? Introduction to domestication of food plants. Section on nutrition and health. [Entry in earlier index: merge?]

LGPX Whitefield, Patrick, How to Make a Forest Garden (Clanfield, Hampshire: Permanent, 1988) Has Foreword by the late Robert Hart and pictures of his pioneering forest garden, which was lost. No entry for ‘yields’ in index, my perennial bugbear.

LGPX Whitefield, Patrick, The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook For Britain and Other Temperate Climates (East Meon, Hampshire: Permanent, 2004) A much needed complement to Bill Mollison’s Permaculture manual, full of practical wisdom, deserving to be life-changing for its readers. When this book came out, copies were available at a permaculture convergence, and some people were saying that it is too big and too expensive, and those people bought the author’s earlier book, Permaculture in a Nutshell. There is no entry in the index for ‘yields’, which is my permaculture bugbear: too much focus on ‘design’ and initial implementation, nothing really on evaluation of outcomes.