Nature's Web - Hardcover

Marshall, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557786526 ISBN 13: 9781557786524

Publisher: Paragon House, 1998

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Marshall , Ph.D., is a philosopher, traveller, and full-time writer. He has a doctorate in the History of Ideas, and has taught philosophy and literature at several British universities.

Review:

In this encyclopedic book, British educator Marshall explores the ideas regarding humanity's place in nature embodied in major religions and philosophies as well as the challenge to traditional anthropocentric world views offered by contemporary environmental ethics. He begins with ancient cultures and proceeds chronologically through the rise of scientific thought, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic Movement to our current ecological crisis. Marshall devotes separate sections to individual philosophers, scientists, and environmentalists, summarizing their ideas and commenting on how these relate to his overall theme of humankind as an integral part of nature's nonhierarchical web of being. In the closing chapters, Marshall presents his own philosophy of libertarian ecology. There is a wealth of information here, yet it is difficult to determine the audience to whom it might appeal. Scholars will find Marshall's analyses too cursory to support the certainty of his observations. Readers without an extensive background in the history of ideas may be overwhelmed by a text that rushes forward from one topic to the next, cramming difficult concepts and unfamiliar terms into a few pages or paragraphs. While some academic libraries might want this for its comprehensiveness, this is not an essential purchase for most collections.-Joan S. Elbers, formerly with Montgomery Coll., Rockville, Md. (Library Journal)

In this compelling search for a new environmental ethic, Marshall ( Demanding the Impossible: The History of Anarchism ) traces the development of human attitudes about nature from ancient times to the present. He notes that ecological thinking draws on science as well as philosophy and religion. In the first section, Marshall examines major religions--Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam--and their views of and effect on nature. In the second section, he turns to the scientific and industrial revolutions that changed our perceptions of the universe. Finally, Marshall surveys facets of today's ecological movements, including deep ecology, social ecology, eco-feminism. He calls for a libertarian ecology that demonstrates reverence for life and its diversities. A sound environmental ethic, he observes, requires imagination to appreciate the needs of other beings and things. (Publishers Weekly)

About this edition

• Publisher: Paragon House
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1557786526
• ISBN 13: 9781557786524
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 513