Rating: 
Summary: Pointless, yet avant garde diatribe
Review: Jensen has a slew of problems and decides that the entire world works the way his childhood did. As an abused child who doesn't actually become a sentient person until his later 20's, he explains his view on Western Civilization where everyone is abused or an abuser, and one's membership to either group vascillates. He also seems to put forth the notion that Western Civilization sprung up as an entity not influenced by history or affected by human nature. He quotes many different sources without providing citation or credit for most, and I have discovered that it is usually quoted out of context. As is becoming increasingly avant garde these days among the environmentalists searching for peer approval through platitudes, he ends the book with the statement that there are no solutions after quipping midway about all the trees the publication of this book has destroyed. While I would be equally as suspect of a book that wrapped up the problem in one tidy little solution, the notion that there are none is absolutely ridiculous and demeans everyone who has fought and suffered thus far. I found his arguments and support for them to be lacking and horribly suppressive to any contradictory evidence. He seems to start off in the right place with many different ideas, including the argument that all of nature communicates, but then contorts them with his notion that everything is black and white. It is unfortunate that he hopelessly anthropomorphises everything in nature in order to justify why it should continue to exist. It solidifies the idea that its importance is only that which we place on it. I have met Jensen in person, asked him about several problems I had with the book, and remain unimpressed.
Rating:
Summary: Pointless, yet avant garde diatribe
Review: Jensen has a slew of problems and decides that the entire world works the way his childhood did. As an abused child who doesn't actually become a sentient person until his later 20's, he explains his view on Western Civilization where everyone is abused or an abuser, and one's membership to either group vascillates. He also seems to put forth the notion that Western Civilization sprung up as an entity not influenced by history or affected by human nature. He quotes many different sources without providing citation or credit for most, and I have discovered that it is usually quoted out of context. As is becoming increasingly avant garde these days among the environmentalists searching for peer approval through platitudes, he ends the book with the statement that there are no solutions after quipping midway about all the trees the publication of this book has destroyed. While I would be equally as suspect of a book that wrapped up the problem in one tidy little solution, the notion that there are none is absolutely ridiculous and demeans everyone who has fought and suffered thus far. I found his arguments and support for them to be lacking and horribly suppressive to any contradictory evidence. He seems to start off in the right place with many different ideas, including the argument that all of nature communicates, but then contorts them with his notion that everything is black and white. It is unfortunate that he hopelessly anthropomorphises everything in nature in order to justify why it should continue to exist. It solidifies the idea that its importance is only that which we place on it. I have met Jensen in person, asked him about several problems I had with the book, and remain unimpressed.
Rating: 
Summary: The Other as Yourself
Review: Jensen has been awe-fully, inspiringly awake, and he modestly submits his report on reality. And believe me, once you read this book you will decide you have not been awake at all; you have been in a trance, or sleep-walking. We are not fully aware of the world around us. For he reminds us that we communicate with animals in a special language. It is an unsettling truth, and you know it to be so. We have been ignoring animals, and certainly have never thought to reach out to them. We feel some stirring in their presence, but we are not quite sure what it means. Jensen explains exactly what it means. But then he expands his notion. We haven't even been attuned to other people, or the Earth. He graphically explains how our destructiveness silences our communication. We have to suppress a child so that we can molest him. We have to trivialize a culture so that we can bomb it. We have to ignore the Earth so we can despoil it. A moving thesis and an absorbing read. In the process, Jensen describes in detail the experience of being sexually attacked by his father. Probably the best book I have read in two years; on a par with The Goddess and the Alphabet by Schlain, although a completely different kind of book. He makes stunning points because they flow naturally out of his personal experience of reality. Schlain makes almost the same argument, but by arraying a lot of information drawn from five thousand years of written culture. Make this the next book you buy. George Bouklas
Rating: 
Summary: Hatred Amidst The Love
Review: Jensen is at his best when illuminating simple yet profound truths about the silencing of victims and the self-destructiveness of our culture. These topics are of global importance, and his raw treatment of them hits hard. This core material is diluted, however, as the book wears on, and Jensen's personal story and views come clear. Jensen's arguments regarding victimization are weakened when he uses his personal yardstick to measure who the victims are (and are not). One case is his defense of revolutionaries who took and held hostages. He describes the hostages' captivity this way:"... prisoners ... played chess, gave and received cooking and music lessons, sang Happy Birthday to each other, and compared their imprisonment to "a cocktail party without liquor." This to describe the ordeal of people held captive for months. In Jensen's view the hostage takers are the victims, and the hostages are prisoners, apparently being treated to a good time by their benevolent hosts. Jensen's arguments are further weakened by his tendency to mix episodes of true victimization with those resulting from his own bad luck or personal choices. Near the end of the book, he recounts a bee-keeping dilemma: "I was poor. I had not yet received a settlement from the trucker whose lack of refrigeration had killed the bees, and so was unable to buy new bees to start over. I was not very happy." This exemplifies Jensen's habit of presenting his misfortunes as the result of another's incompetence or betrayal. The trucker is partly responsible for his poverty, but so is his own refusal to take a job. Jensen's ability to stand by his principles is admirable, but also a contributing factor to many of his problems. Also remarkable is that Jensen calls the terrible abuse inflicted by his father the catalyst for his activism, but denies the possibility that he is acting out his anger at his father through this extremism. That he began "communicating" with stars (harmless, distant, non-human) during an abusive childhood, and eventually withdrew from mainstream society to find his most intimate relationships not with other humans, but with nature, tends to contradict his denial. He spends only half a page on this matter, which begs to be examined. Consequently, this book does more than illuminate our race's "death urge." It provides a look into the mind of a highly intelligent but deeply scarred man whose love of nature is counterbalanced by his hatred of humanity (externalized self-hatred?), the origin of this hatred perhaps being clearer to others than to himself.
Rating:
Summary: The Dance of World Destruction
Review: Jensen opens with a series of body blows: "Do we think about nuclear devastation, or the wisdom of producing tons of plutonium, which is lethal even in microscopic does well over 250,000 years?" Unlikely. "Does global warming invade our dreams?" Umm, no. "In our most serious moments do we consider that industrial civilization has initiated the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet?" I'm not into science. "How often do we consider that our culture commits genocide against every indigenous culture it encounters?" Hey, that's Darwinism at work, right? "As one consumes the products manufactured by our culture, is s/he concerned about the atrocities that make them possible?" Not if one wants to look cool. ... "We don't stop these atrocities because we don't talk about them. We don't talk about them, because don't think about them. We don't think about them, because they are too horrific to comprehend." They are too foreboding and ominous to stomach. They are, in effect, unspeakable. After taking an honest look at the evolution of Western Civilization, Jensen draws the only logical conclusion that can be found: Our culture is insane. We are off our collective rocker. Reason, science, technological advancement and the work-a-day world have only driven us deeper into the carnival of horror and madness. Things are not getting better. They are getting worse with each passing day. Oops, I went and said it. ... As Jensen notes, we are all in this web of destruction together. ... ... ... Don't buy this book. It might affect you. Go to the mall, plop down in front of the TV, or hit the disco and dance away the thought of this pessimistic review - but do keep an eye out for those grenades. ~A glObal MindbOmb Book~
Rating:
Summary: The silencing of our world.
Review: Jensen reflects about our culture. As he notes, silencing and violence are common behaviors that provide the powerful their power and the victims their invisibility. Jensen presents a view of our society that is sometimes difficult to accept, but that can't be ignored. When we silence nature, ourselves or someone else, it is often done violently. What do we lose in that silence in terms of our understanding of the world or each other? I found this book moving and enlightening. I have a better understanding of the beauty that we have lost by silencing the world and the ugliness that we have gained through our violent encounters with the world and one another.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly confused logic by author wounds noble goal
Review: Jensen seems like a good man. Sexually abused as a child, he has dedicated his life to saving the environment, for the sake of the salmon, bears, trees, and us. This is noble. However, his logic at times takes giant leaps, or his facts are distorted.
I am a man that wants everything to be proven to me. (Interestingly enough, because of this, I'm Catholic and not an atheist.) However, Jensen does not prove to me that interspecies communication is as real as he thinks it is. He cites a study saying most people believe in it. Out of curiosity, I did a small scale survey of friends and coworkers. I only found one who thinks interspecies communication is natural. They are stated something like, "Yes, I believe in interspecies communication. That's how we train dogs. BUT it only works with domesticated animals." Could this fact have been overlooked by Jensen?
Jensen then uses the story of his dog his chicken. His dog would frequently put the chicken in his mouth as a toy. Jensen claims that his dog understood that he was to no longer do this to the chicken because Jensen said so. Yet, Jensen admits it took many weeks of yelling at the dog to stop. Isn't it possible the dog was TRAINED and didn't understand the first time?
His other errors deal with what has happened when the culture of Europe met people of other races. He specifically attacks Christians for being "bad" to the natives. I would most certainly agree the Europeans were "bad" to the natives, but I surely would not say they all were or that this is Christinaity's fault (something he seems to understand little about. Jesus was not the first environmentalist.) Names like Blessed Juniperro Serra comes to mind, who taught irrigation to groups of Native Americans in the west. Or Damien Vesteur, who worked amongst the sick of Hawaii. His attack on Christianity is unfounded.
Although the book does raise good points (that we are in serious trouble), his solutions are lacking, and so are his attacks on what the real problem is. Therefore, I cannot recommend this book to others.
Rating:
Summary: A modern-day Thoreau
Review: Jensen's book is both terrifying (NASA is apparently using plutonium to power its rockets, in spite of the risk of an accident on earth) and haunting (the image of a child trying to be invisible in order to avoid a beating.) It breaks your heart. It challenges you. This modern-day Thoreau bares his soul in an attempt to get us to open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. I hope we have the courage to listen to him.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most deeply-moving books I've ever read
Review: Oh how I wish I could get every member of Congress, say, or every schoolboard member across the country to read this profound book. Imagine such "leaders" having the sensitivity, insight and values that Derrick Jensen displays in this book! Our world would not be the same. The book has a lot of sadness to it - and why not, since the subject - the pain and destruction being inflicted upon our dear old mother earth and all her children - is a sad one indeed. There's a lot of honesty here, and a willingness to go places the less-courageous would never go. A sad, moving and powerful tale this is, but not a depressing one, for it goes deep into what ails us and our planet home, and that kind of depth is ultimately exhilerating and encouraging. A truly remarkable book - please buy it! In fact, buy as many as you can and give copies to friends and foes alike!
Rating:
Summary: Different . . .
Review: One doesn't have to always agree with Jensen's arguments to get a lot out his book. Indeed, his calls for dismantling civilization may provoke dismay and be misconstrued by some. Even so, this is an extremely well-written book, and endlessly thought-provoking. It's free-flowing style and rather loose organization actually make it easier, rather than more difficult, to read. Jensen's use of deeply personal and often tragic experiences to illustrate some of his points and/or back is arguments, far from being pathetic, gives this book far more weight than it would otherwise have. In light of recent events, there is one disarmingly simple statement he makes - and a point that essentially underlies the entire text - which I simultaneously find particularly troubling, meaningful and significant: "Things don't have to be the way they are."
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