Nature's Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth: Rethinking Our Place on Earth

by Marshall,Peter

• ISBN13: 9781563248641
• ISBN10: 1563248646
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1996-05-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This powerful book provides the first comprehensive overview of the intellectual roots of the worldwide environmental movement - from ancient religions and philosophies to modern science and ethics - and synthesizes them into a new philosophy of nature in which to ground our moral values and social action. It traces the origins and evolution of the dominant worldview that has built our industrial, technocratic, man-centered civilization, and brought us to the current ecological crisis. At the same time, it uncovers an alternative cultural tradition in the world's different religions and philosophies and describes how these ideas are now surfacing and coalescing to form an ecological sensibility and a new vision of nature which recognizes the inter-relatedness of all living things. Finally, this book integrates these varied traditions with modern physics and the science of ecology into a larger philosophical whole that provides the environmental movement with a comprehensive vision of an organic and sustainable society in harmony with nature. As ecological disasters continue to threaten our planet, becoming worse with every passing moment of indifference, it has become clear that we must take action. We must change our relationship with nature, and return to the days when our lives were intimately connected to and dependent upon the natural world. Nature's Web lays the foundations for that change by explaining where our complex ideas about nature come from, why they are wrong, and what we can do to change them.

Table of Contents

The Birthday	p. vi
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Ancient Roots	p. 7
Taoism the Way of Nature	p. 9
Hinduism the Way of Understanding	p. 24
Buddhism the Way of Compassion	p. 41
Ancient Egypt Waters on High	p. 54
Early Greece Gaia	p. 62
The Romans the Way of the Soldier	p. 80
Celtic Mysteries Neither This nor That	p. 89
The Judaeo-Christian Tradition Man's Dominion Over Nature	p. 97
Christianity the Good Shepherd	p. 108
Islam the Goodly Tree	p. 127
North American Indians the Way of the Eagle	p. 137
Seeds Beneath The Snow	p. 149
Alchemy Sacred Philosophy	p. 151
The Scientific Revolution Nature on the Rack	p. 168
Philosophers of the Brave New World	p. 180
The Philosophical Counter - Revolution	p. 194
The Enlightenment the Disenchantment of Nature	p. 214
To Follow Nature	p. 222
Primitivism and the Noble Savage	p. 235
Changing Sensibilities	p. 245
Green Visions	p. 265
The Romantic Mind and Imagination	p. 267
Romantic Cosmology	p. 281
Utopian Seers	p. 299
Darwinism and the Web of Life	p. 319
The New World of Ecology	p. 333
Philosophers of the Earth	p. 348
Time and Being: Modern Organic Philosophy	p. 358
The Cosmic Joy of the New Science	p. 373
The Resurrection of Gaia	p. 391
The Joining Of The Ways	p. 401
Environmental Ethics	p. 403
Deep Ecology Versus Social Ecology	p. 413
Towards a Libertarian Ecology	p. 430
Ecotopia Revisited	p. 448
Notes	p. 464
Select Bibliography	p. 490
Index	p. 502
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.