Customer Reviews

This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature and Environment

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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.

I just finished using this text in a course and I was actually very disappointed. Do not judge a book by its cover as they say. Compared to how much it discusses the five leading religion, the mention of original religious connections with man and nature, is minimal at best. It does not even mention Ancient Egypt, only briefly covers old world religions and paganism, which tells me that the author was too religious to have written such a text. I do not believe that anyone religious with a particular faith should be looked too to write about other religions and sacred beliefs other than their own. They simply do not have it in them. The majority of it focuses on modern religion and the religious beliefs that have dominated the globe for 2000 years only. If a return to natural roots is what you are hoping to achieve, or even a decent acknowledgement of the damages and reality of leading religions regarding nature and mans connection with nature, I suggest you look elsewhere.

"Sacred Earth" is a collection of essays that facilitates the examination of the intersection between ecocritical theories and religious texts and ideas. A great range of subjects, approaches, ad texts are considered. Very worth the consideration of any one new to the field of ecocritical studies. Even long time scholars in the area will find much that is useful.

I wanted a good reference manual for understanding the 'old religion'and it's roots. This book seemed perfect.