We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth

Although for a great many people, the human impact on the Earth--countless species becoming extinct, pandemics claiming millions of lives, and climate crisis causing worldwide social and environmental upheaval--was not apparent until recently, this is not the case for all people or cultures. For the Indigenous people of the world, radical alteration of the planet, and of life itself, is a story that is many generations long. They have had to adapt, to persevere, and to be courageous and resourceful in the face of genocide and destruction--and their experience has given them a unique understanding of civilizational devastation.

An innovative work of research and reportage, We Are the Middle of Forever places Indigenous voices at the center of conversations about today's environmental crisis. The book draws on interviews with people from different North American Indigenous cultures and communities, generations, and geographic regions, who share their knowledge and experience, their questions, their observations, and their dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible to all of life. A welcome antidote to the despair arising from the climate crisis, We Are the Middle of Forever brings to the forefront the perspectives of those who have long been attuned to climate change and will be an indispensable aid to those looking for new and different ideas and responses to the challenges we face.

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq as well as The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption (The New Press). He has won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism and the Izzy Award. He lives in Washington State.

Stan Rushworth is a teacher of Native American literature and the author of Sam Woods, Going to Water, Diaspora's Children. He lives in Watsonville, California.