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Crooked timber

As we collect ever more evidence about times past and places afar, we find that there seem to have been no times or places when or where environmental edens existed (at least not since the original Eden). There seem to be no classes or cohorts of people who live or lived according to the romantic and nostalgic images we sometimes hold—images suggesting that at some time, somewhere, everyone practiced ecologically sound ways of life, respected others and avoided hierarchy, and leaders led without asserting dominance and power.