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

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A powerful, intimate collection of conversations with Indigenous Americans on the climate crisis and the Earth's future

Although for a great many people, the impact of human behavior on the Earth — countless species becoming extinct, pandemics claiming millions of lives, a 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, 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 where they belong: at the center of conversations about today's environmental crisis. The book draws on interviews with people from many different North American Indigenous cultures and communities, generations, and geographic regions, who share their knowledge and experience, their questions, their observations, and, importantly, 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.

"We Are the Middle of Forever does something incredible with time: it covers millennia of Indigenous history, grounded in conversations across the arc of the pandemic, all while giving the broadest platform for intellectuals whose visionary work today makes them ambassadors from the future. This is a book whose reading is medicine, a beautiful invitation to a more sacred world in the company of some of the brightest stars of contemporary Indigenous activism." — Raj Patel, co-author (with Rupa Marya) of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice

"Insights like these, and dozens more, deserve deep attention and will hopefully spur readers into action to save the planet and themselves." — Booklist (Starred Review)

"A refreshingly unique and incredibly informative collection of vital Indigenous wisdom." — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

Dahr Jamail 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 and (with Stan Rushworth) We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth (both from 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: American Healing, Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain, Diaspora's Children, and (with Dahr Jamail) We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth (The New Press). He lives in Northern California.