Nature in Crisis: ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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What is the significance of 'Braiding Sweetgrass' in nature writing?
Welcome to another episode of Nature in Crisis, a London Review of Books podcast. Your hosts are me, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney, though currently in the forests of North Carolina, near Pilot Mountain.
And me, Mian Christ, writer in residence in biological sciences at Columbia University, sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn.
In this series, we're looking at nature writing, basically, but often nature writing, writing about nature that has close links to questions about policy, about what we should do. Most of the books we've been covering are fairly new. but we're including three landmark books slightly older in the series. The first of these was Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The second was James Lovelock's book Gaia. And this time we're looking at Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. This book came out in 2013 with a small independent press, Milkweed Editions. But seven years later, it landed on the New York Times bestseller list. remarkable thing for a book from a small press.
And it's been, well, it was on the bestseller list for a long time. It sold something like 2 million copies worldwide. It's been translated into 20 languages at least.
Who is Robin Wall Kimmerer and what are her credentials?
There's a young adult version. It's really been a landmark. I wonder whether it sold more copies than any other book in our series. I guess Carson would be the obvious possibility for a book that sold more. It's older. It was also a landmark. But Braiding Sweetgrass really has had an enormous amount of impact. I guess we should start with Kimra herself.
Yeah, so Kimmerer is a member of the citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is also a botanist. She attended State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She got a bachelor's degree there in botany and then went on to earn her PhD at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her master's degree in botany in 1979, followed by her PhD in plant ecology in 1983. And it was while studying forest ecology as part of her degree program that she first learned about mosses, and briology became the scientific focus of her career. So she has since written a number of books.
How does Kimmerer blend Indigenous knowledge with scientific perspectives?
Her first book is, in fact, about mosses. And she has credited science writer Lauren Isley as being the first to inspire her as a writer. And she's also pointed to the poet Wendell Berry as inspiration, as well as Rachel Carson. And in particular, Kimmerer has said that as a pioneering female scientist, Carson, quote, combined her knowledge with a sense of responsibility for that knowledge. And I think that that really... something in there really embodies that sense of what is really the driving force of this particular book. This idea that there's this person with this huge understanding of ecology and in particular botany and feels this both heavy sense of responsibility and also a very kind of joyful sense of responsibility in terms of passing on what she knows and making use of what she knows in ways that are even larger than the teaching that she does with her students.
Yeah, it's nice also to see Carson mentioned yet again. She's a recurring figure all the way through this series. Let's start talking about the book, and I want to say up front that I will criticize quite a few or some ideas in the book, but I do admire it, and I admire Kimura a lot. I think that if more people thought like her, we'd be living in a considerably better world.
Yeah, I do think I do think that this book is remarkable. And I think there's a reason that so many people have read this book and so many people sort of pass it hand to hand. It really is a book that was, you know, it didn't come out and make a huge splash and get a bunch of attention and become a bestseller. People read it one by one and pass it to people they know because they said, I think you should read this.
What themes are central to Kimmerer's message in 'Braiding Sweetgrass'?
I think you would love this. I think you would learn something from this. And they kept passing it and kept passing it because there's something really powerful in here in the message that she has that is really grounded in both science and ecology and understanding of the way that life on Earth works.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the significance of 'Braiding Sweetgrass' in nature writing?
0:00–1:37
2
Who is Robin Wall Kimmerer and what are her credentials?
1:37–2:39
3
How does Kimmerer blend Indigenous knowledge with scientific perspectives?
2:39–4:21
4
What themes are central to Kimmerer's message in 'Braiding Sweetgrass'?
4:21–5:50
5
Why is sweetgrass a central metaphor in Kimmerer's book?
5:50–6:55
6
How does Kimmerer address the importance of teaching and mentorship?
6:55–8:35
7
What role does reciprocity play in Kimmerer's worldview?
8:35–10:21
8
How does Kimmerer illustrate the connection between nature and spirituality?
10:21–14:34
Speakers
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