This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment

Rating:
Summary: An excellent reader, worth reading and rereading.
Review: The advantage of readers is twofold. First, they allow one to cover a lot of ground with relatively little reading, allowing a fairly quick overview of the subject. Second, they can act as an introduction to writers whose work can be discovered in depth elsewhere. 'This Sacred Earth' offers both advantages. Those interested in what has been written and thought concerning the links between religion, nature and the environment could do a lot worse than to start here. In addition, Roger Gottlieb's introductions to the seven sections of readings presented provide a commentary on the key issues and a guide through the diversity of the religious traditions represented. In fact, diversity is one of the strengths of this book. Gottlieb is able to make links among the major world religions and other worldviews, showing how environmental sensitivity and ecological spirituality transcend any one faith and are essential parts of what it is to be human. True, the book has an American bias (all the 'nature writers' in the first section are American, if you count John Muir as such), but the readings in other sections are international enough to compensate for any minor parochialism.