Acknowledgments

A book two decades in the making inevitably involves influential conversations and contributions too numerous to acknowledge appropriately. I am deeply grateful for the intellectual communities I have inhabited; they have stimulated and refined many of the arguments of the book. My colleagues at Green Mountain College willingly participated in many “test runs” of the ideas; in particular, Laird Christensen, Steve Fesmire, Heather Keith, Matt Mayberry, Tom Mauhs-Pugh, and Paul Stonehouse helped me significantly improve them. My students’ reactions often led me to new insights. Rebecca Muffler and Kately Mann provided important research assistance.

Bruce Piasecki gave me an opportunity to present my ideas to business leaders and encouraged me to think much more broadly about my audience. At crucial moments, Mel Bringle helped me steer a new course that turned out to be far more effective. Steve Schwartz and Kimerer Lamothe made detailed comments on the entire manuscript and provided just the right mix of incisive critique and encouragement to guide the revision process. Two anonymous referees helped me to focus on the material that was most important, making the book much clearer. My mentor, Dick Prust, helped me polish the manuscript. My editor, Kitty Liu, and her able staff shepherded the manuscript to publication with patience and professionalism.

Early versions of a few parts of the book were published elsewhere, and I am grateful for being able to reuse this material. A different version of the main argument of the book can be found in “Flourishing in the Age of Climate Change: Finding the Heart of Sustainability,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 40 (2016): 296–314. The section on hope in chapter 2 is adapted from “Coping with Climate Despair: Cultivating the Skills of Hope and Tranquil Resolve,” Journal of Sustainability Education 28, March (2023), coauthored with Paul Stonehouse. Parts of chapter 4 have been repurposed from “Frugality and Resilience: A Pragmatist Meditation,” in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience, edited by Kelly A. Parker and Heather E. Keith (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Chapter 7 is an expanded version of “Learning Our Way toward Resilience,” in The Community Resilience Reader: Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval, edited by Daniel Lerch (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2017), 247–60.

My partner in all things, Meriel Brooks, has made writing this book possible in myriad ways. She has commented extensively on two versions of the manuscript and done an enormous amount of detail work where my patience would have failed me. She has been my north star and my joy.