Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism

Berry, Evan

ISBN 10: 0520285735 / ISBN 13: 9780520285736

Published by University of California Press, 2015

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Devoted to Nature: The Religious Roots of American Environmentalism
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520285735
• ISBN 13: 9780520285736
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Devoted to Nature explores the religious underpinnings of American environmentalism, tracing the theological character of American environmental thought from its Romantic foundations to contemporary nature spirituality. During the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, religious sources were central to the formation of the American environmental imagination, shaping ideas about the natural world, establishing practices of engagement with environments and landscapes, and generating new modes of social and political interaction. Building on the work of seminal environmental historians who acknowledge the environmental movement’s religious roots, Evan Berry offers a potent theoretical corrective to the narrative that explained the presence of religious elements in the movement well into the twentieth century. In particular, Berry argues that an explicitly Christian understanding of salvation underlies the movement’s orientation toward the natural world. Theologically derived concepts of salvation, redemption, and spiritual progress have not only provided the basic context for Americans’ passion for nature but have also established the horizons of possibility within the national environmental imagination.

About the Author

Evan Berry is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at American University and Codirector of its Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs master's program.