Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, Revised [Paperback]

Frederick Turner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1992

"With learning that embraces not only the history but the literary evolution, the dreams, and the profound psychic cravings of Western development, with insight, elegance, and uncanny precision that his readers have come to take for granted, Turner's work addresses the underlying delusion, the tragedy, the wreckage of our age, and how it came to pass. We are all in his debt." --W. S. Merwin "It is an astonishing performance and it works--not merely because Turner writes with a grace and perception that place him with a handful of historians who can be called great literary stylists, but because he has an idea going here, a significant one. . . . [A] brilliant, demanding, and important work." --San Francisco Chronicle "This is no ordinary critique of modern civilization . . . Beyond Geography is clearly a work of brilliance and imagination, a compelling, disturbing, and uncommonly literate exploration of one of mankind's most basic dilemmas." --Atlantic Monthly First published in 1980, Beyond Geography continues to influence and impress its readers, providing a reconstruction of the spiritual history that led up to the European domination and decimation of native culture that were as rich in mythic life as the Western culture was barren. This new edition, prepared for the Columbus quincentennial, includes a new foreword by T. H. Watkins and a new preface by the author. As the public debates Columbus's legacy, it is important for us to learn of the spiritual background of European domination of the Americas, for the Europeans who conquered the Americas substituted history for myth as a way of understanding life. Frederick Turner is the author of six books, including a biography of John Muir, a personal investigation of the roots of New Orleans jazz, and a study of the making of the American literary landscape. His essays have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, American Heritage, and the Nation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (October 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813519098
• ISBN-13: 978-0813519098
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #87 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Fairy Tales

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Fear of Going Native, February 13, 2003

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This review is from: Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness, Revised (Paperback)

Here Frederick Turner advances a spiritual and religious thesis for the destruction of nature by Western civilization. What sets the West apart from almost everyone else in the world is a lack of connection with nature, which has lead to vast environmental destruction and the extermination of entire peoples. With great historical insight Turner traces this tendency way back to the very earliest cultures of the Near East such as Sumer and Mesopotamia, which were besieged by hostile nomads who resisted their attempts at the settled life. This influence continued into the Roman Empire which was constantly on the verge of collapse from barbarians at the gates, and Western culture developed an innate fear of unstructured and unknown nature. Meanwhile, as Christianity became the world's most bureaucratic religion, God was removed from the world and confined to the church, and stifling dogma prevented followers from attaining new revelations and awareness. In turn the outside natural world became the realm of Satan and had to be conquered and controlled. Turner extends these dire trends into the eras of exploration and expansion into the new world, with the stipulation that the inherent Western disconnection from nature led that culture to destroy it out of hatred and repressed desires.

This is a very strong thesis and Turner's research and insights are sound, especially for the time he wrote the book (1980), though he does tend to do a lot of stretching. An example is the implication that Westerners were so likely to slaughter other peoples because Christianity did not allow ritual sacrifices. Another problem is the inconsistent writing in this book, as Turner's distinct history and anthropology often drift into sentimentality and repetitive complaining about the West's evil deeds. Early in the book he condemns the doctrine of the "noble savage" as a patronizing effect of hypocritical Western culture (which it is), but in the final two chapters Turner is dangerously close to this attitude himself. Despite some inconsistencies, Turner has delivered a very insightful look into the culture that destroyed much of the natural world and the deep historical influences that prevented remorse and guilt, except in the subconscious of every nature-deprived Western person.