Finding the Ape - by Neil Kingsnorth (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Finding the Ape explores the roots of the planetary crisis, arguing it stems from humanity's belief that we are separate from nature. Through Indigenous wisdom and stories from West Wales, Neil Kingsnorth calls for reconnection with local land, ecology and community as the foundation for a more humane future.The planet is in crisis, and it is a crisis of our own making. Despite decades of activism, innovation and urgent warnings, little seems to change. Understanding why this is so may be the most important challenge of our time.

For centuries, we have attempted to solve our problems by addressing symptoms rather than causes. From the first agricultural societies and the rise of organised religion, through the Renaissance and into today's hyper-connected global world, humanity has steadily centralised power and promoted a powerful myth: that we are exceptional, separate from the rest of life on Earth.

These beliefs have come at a cost. They have pulled us out of relationship with the ecologies that once sustained us, and increasingly from one another. We now inhabit a parallel world of abstraction, struggling to reconnect with reality while longing for belonging. In forgetting our place in the web of life, we have forgotten something fundamental: we are animals. We are apes.

In Finding the Ape, Neil Kingsnorth searches for another way forward. Drawing on insights from Indigenous cultures and contemporary thinkers, he explores a path rooted in the reconnection of local community and local ecology. If viable solutions to our planetary crisis lie not in grand global schemes but in the rebuilding of place-based relationships, then this is where the search must begin.

Turning close to home, Kingsnorth journeys through his local landscape of West Wales, weaving personal encounters with people, projects and non-human kin who are already living differently. Through intimate stories of land, ecology and community, he uncovers quiet, grounded sources of resilience and hope.

Finding the Ape is both a reckoning with how we arrived at this moment and a deeply personal exploration of what a more rooted, humane and ecological future might look like.

About the Author

Neil Kingsnorth has spent 25 years trying all manner of ways to confront Earth's imbalance. He's been Head of Activism for Friends of the Earth and CEO of The Orchard Project. He's blockaded roads and locked himself to fences. He's been a nature-based garden designer and he's taught permaculture. Now he co-runs a social enterprise and a heritage fruit tree nursery and he works with community groups across West Wales. He lives in Pembrokeshire with a wonderful wife and daughter.