In 1961, I left Greece for the United States. The reason for that life-changing decision was education. The University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin welcomed me and gave me a free education. I earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Illinois and my doctorate from Wisconsin.   In college My education was a mixture of science and humanities. I combined zoology with Greek (ancient, medieval and modern) history, as well as Roman history and modern European (Russian, Soviet Union, Southeastern European and British) history. To this multidisciplinary bowl I added the history of science from my postdoctoral studies at Harvard. I did all this book reading, test taking, and writing a dissertation in ten years. The next step was finding work. By the time I graduated from Wisconsin, in 1972, I was married with my first child. This made earning a living imperative. I worked on Capitol Hill and the US Environmental Protection Agency for twenty-seven years. 

Oikos / home in the Benitses Port, Kerkyra, Greece. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos The oikos / home paradigm The word ecology derives from the Greek word  οἶκος  (oikos, home, household). The German zoologist  Ernst Haeckel  coined the term in late nineteenth century in order to describe relations between animals and animals with their environment. Late nineteenth century was just as revolutionary as our time: the same aggression and thoughtlessness on all matters of the natural world.  This was a time when the footprint of humanity started crushing the world of animals and plants. Industrialization was the new paradigm for “progress.” Religious men, businessmen, politicians and academics wanted a piece of the action: controlling nature was at the heart of this emerging machine culture. Petroleum chemistry fueled the engines of production and destruction.  Haeckel and some of his contemporary European scientists could see that humans were ripping apart the delicate

Opening ceremony of the Olympics in Athens, 2004. Courtesy Wikipedia. Prologue   Greece, the wellspring of Western civilization, has a continuity of existence from ancient times to the present day.  In spite of multiple depredations inflicted on the country over millennia, Greek ideas, science, discoveries and practices forming the foundations of Western culture, have persisted. In this essay, the contours of Greek history are traced from the classical era to the present.  Through thick and thin, the essential body of knowledge that defines Greece’s legacy , and Greece as a country,  a re  preserved, sometimes underground for centuries, to emerge into the open during the Renaissance.  Today, the ideas of ancient Greece continue to inform and illuminate current problems and prospects of modern life. I hope that this essay reaches educated people who travel to Greece to see the ruins of ancient Greek civilization. I am urging them, including the Greeks in Greece, to r

Chinese village. Courtesy Ye Yezi, Beijing Center for Ecological Civilization. For the third time, Zhihe Wang and Meijun Fan opened the doors for another interesting trip to China. The husband-wife philosophers direct the Institute for Postmodern Development of China in Claremont, California. They  have been striving to bring America and China closer together by building bridges between these civilizations. Their great hope is that ancient Chinese ecological wisdom can still enlighten the world. They recommended me to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which invited me to an international ecological conference in Jinan, Shandong Province, China.  The Academy gave the conference a provocative and insightful title: a Paradigm Shift: Towards Ecological Civilization: China and the World. I listened to several Chinese and non-Chinese experts talk about a variety of issues (political, economic and ecological) touching on our present world crisis.  The discussion took p