The Great Work
Book description
Thomas Berry is one of the most eminent cultural historians of our time. Here he presents the culmination of his ideas and urges us to move from being a disrupting force on the Earth to a benign presence. This transition is the Great Work -- the most necessary and most…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Great Work as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Thomas Berry called himself a geologian, and wrote this book at the same time as Everybody’s Story, neither author aware of the other. An ordained Catholic priest, he later said that “the bible should be put on the shelf for 100 years” while we attend to planetary exigencies. Seminal quotes: “The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.” “The environmental crisis is fundamentally a spiritual crisis.”
From Ursula's list on an ecospiritual orientation.
Thomas Berry is a historian of cultures including the American culture.
He has published extensively on Chinese and Indian culture. Because agriculture is the largest and most widespread human interaction with the environment it is important we humans begin to understand where we are in our environmental relations and how we got there.
Barry encourages us to reflect on the wonder of the earth and how the natural world requires our respect and admiration. We need to think about how we humans have responded to the biblical injunction to have dominion over and conquer the earth.
We have done that…
From Robert's list on beginning to think about the ethics of agriculture.
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