The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words

Book Description

The fact that Abraham Lincoln is now universally recognized as America’s greatest political orator would have surprised many of the citizens who voted him into office. Ungainly in stature and awkward in manner, the newly elected Lincoln was considered a Western stump speaker and debater devoid of rhetorical polish. Then, after the outbreak of the Civil War, he stood before the nation to deliver his Message to Congress in Special Session on July 4, 1861, and, as a contemporary editor put it, “some of us who doubted were wrong.”

In The Eloquent President, historian Ronald White examines Lincoln’s astonishing oratory and explores his growth as a leader, a communicator, and a man of deepening spiritual conviction. Examining a different speech, address, or public letter in each chapter, White tracks the evolution of Lincoln’s rhetoric from the measured, lawyerly tones of the First Inaugural, to the imaginative daring of the 1862 Annual Message to Congress, to the haunting, immortal poetry of the Gettysburg Address.

As a speaker who appealed not to intellect alone, but also to the hearts and souls of citizens, Lincoln persuaded the nation to follow him during the darkest years of the Civil War. Through the speeches and what surrounded them–the great battles and political crises, the president’s private anguish and despair, the impact of his words on the public, the press, and the nation at war–we see the full sweep and meaning of the Lincoln presidency.

As he weighs the biblical cadences and vigorous parallel structures that make Lincoln’s rhetoric soar, White identifies a passionate religious strain that most historians have overlooked. It is White’s contention that as president Lincoln not only grew into an inspiring leader and determined commander in chief, but also embarked on a spiritual odyssey that led to a profound understanding of the relationship between human action and divine will.

Brilliantly written, boldly original in conception, The Eloquent President blends history, biography, and a deep intuitive appreciation for the quality of Lincoln’s extraordinary mind. With grace and insight, White captures the essence of the four most critical years of Lincoln’s life and makes the great words live for our time in all their power and beauty.

Customer Reviews:

With Malice Toward None .......2006-05-27

This was really well done, and certainly can be appreciated not just by admirers of Lincoln, but readers interested in the process of writing and speaking - especially for the purpose of winning an argument.

Some earlier posts are correct in noting that the book is superior to some other efforts that focused on single speeches, such as Garry Willis' book on the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln at Cooper Union. I haven't read White's Lincoln's Greatest Speech.

However, my feeling is the book could have taken an even longer view. That is pick up Lincoln as a speaker at a much earlier point in his life and follow him from his days as a country lawyer to the Second Inaugural Address. As it is, starting at a point in his life when Lincoln was already an accomplished speaker, we see him go from very good to great.

Also, while I thought the Mr. White's argument that the Bible was a strong influence on Lincoln's speaking style has merit, it also often seemed forced. I would have taken Lincoln's comments that both sides were praying to the same God as the view of a religous skeptic, for example.

Lincoln the Eloquent President.......2005-09-19

Wonderful analysis of this remarkable and sensitive wordsmith and President

An excellent look at Lincoln's developing eloquence.......2005-07-08

In this book, White expands the focus from his previous work on Lincoln's Second Inaugural ("Lincoln's Greatest Speech" published in 2002). White looks at the progression of Lincoln's thought and the increasing greatness and eloquence of his speeches and public letters during his presidency that leads to that final and considered by many to be his greatest major speech.

In the process of examining these speeches, White looks at them each individually, but also looks at their relationship to one another as "a string of pearls" (a term he uses more than once in the book). White uses this visual description of the speeches stating that while each pearl is beautiful in its own way and can be examined separately, they also come together and one pearl connects to others in the string that can best be understood by comparing them to each other and examining the ways they are connected. In many of the speeches, White demonstrates that Lincoln leaves the audience with thoughts and ideas that his mind is still wrestling with that are picked up again in a later speech and developed more fully as his thoughts on those subjects have matured over time.

White has also done an excellent job in selecting the best and most memorable speeches and public letters from Lincoln's presidency. He begins with Lincoln's farewell remarks at Springfield on February, 11, 1861 and includes remarks from his journey to Washington. Also included are both of Lincoln's Inaugural Addresses, his reply to Horace Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Millions," the 1862 Message to Congress, Conkling Letter, and Gettysburg Address. As I read each chapter on each of the speeches, I got a sense of the growth of Lincoln and the development of his thought until it reached its twin climaxes of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural.

The Great Communicator.......2005-05-04

Historians across the political spectrum agree that the United States has had only two great presidents, Washington and Lincoln. They also agree that of all our presidents Lincoln was the most eloquent.

By analyzing some of the speeches that Lincoln composed while president, White puts them into historical context, illuminating their whole truth where previous scholars might have been satisfied with a partial one. He describes each speech as a pearl connected by a common thread. Stringing together these pearls, he demonstrates not only Lincoln's habits and thoughts but the evolution of his thoughts, for one speech usually built on a previous one and pointed toward another. Lincoln lived and wrote within the continuum of past, present, and future.

As Bridges and Rickenbacker write in their book, The Art of Persuasion, schemes and tropes are the tools of the language, having originated with Aristotle; their use lends weight and authority to the spoken and written word. Lincoln made heavy use of alliteration, antithesis, assonance, asyndeton, ellipsis, erotema, isocolon, parallelism -- practically a dictionary of rhetoric -- which White too rarely refers to by name. He argues persuasively that Lincoln met Aristotle's qualifications for successful art of persuasion: 1) moral character; 2) the ability to excite listeners based on an understanding of their thoughts and feelings; and 3) the ability to prove a truth through various forms of argument. An experienced lawyer, Lincoln often argued by syllogism. He wrote on practical occasions to achieve practical effects. Frequently he shunned polysyllabic Latin derivatives for plain Saxon in order to appeal to a broad audience.

Some biographers have been reluctant to credit Lincoln with a traditional religious sense, calling him a deist, fatalist, or skeptic, but his rhetoric suggests otherwise. Not only did he attend services, he read carefully the King James Bible, employing biblical cadences and references throughout his work. One might say his writing, like his life, was informed by a strong awareness of the workings of providence.

Lincoln's skill was even more remarkable when we consider that he was self-taught. In a Congressional directory, when asked to comment on his education, he wrote: "defective." He studied Scott's Lessons in Elocution, he absorbed Kirkham's English Grammar; both were more rigorous than what today's students encounter. I have found other sources which listed Lincoln's literary influences as the Bible, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, and Blackstone's Commentaries -- difficult to read on one's own, all of them. Throughout his life Lincoln worked diligently on writing and revising, sometimes reading to the nearest listener, sometimes aloud to himself, always concerned with orality and effect on the audience. He wrote slowly and spoke slowly.

Robert Frost one said that he intended to "lodge a few poems where they couldn't be gotten rid of easily." Lincoln's speeches have become lodged into the American vernacular: First Inaugural ("better angels of our nature"); Second Inaugural ("with malice toward none"); Gettysburg Address ("new birth of freedom"); Cooper Institute Address ("What is conservatism?"); the House Divided speech, the Emancipation Proclamation. How many American presidents have made such an impact through their words? Who was the last president even to write his own speeches?

The terrible irony is that critics of the time denied Lincoln's eloquence, much like the impoverished souls of today who, unable to let go of the Confederacy, insist with John Wilkes Booth that Lincoln was a tyrant. Such is the fate of the good and the great. Profound are their efforts, however, for those like Ronald White who are paying attention.

The living word.......2005-03-28

This is a highly interesting history of the emergence of Lincoln's great rhetorical career during the civil war, starting with his railroad tour on the way to Washington after his election. Tracing the particulars and varied drafts of these gestating classics, the author puts each of the classic speeches in its context, especially the Gettesburg Address. The resulting fine-grain context for Lincoln's great masterpieces of eloquence is highly enjoyable and highlights the tenous edge they gave to his threatened passage as president through the trials of the Civil War.

The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.(Book review) : An article from: Journal of Southern History

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The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.(Book review) : An article from: Journal of Southern History
Stewart Winger
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000G1TBFS
Release Date: 2006-06-05

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This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2006. The length of the article is 564 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.(Book review)
Author: Stewart Winger
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 72 Issue: 2 Page: 483(2)

Article Type: Book review

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Lincoln in his own words.(The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald C. White)(Book Review): An article from: Policy Review

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Lincoln in his own words.(The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald C. White)(Book Review): An article from: Policy Review
Daniel Sullivan
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Policy Review, published by Thomson Gale on June 1, 2005. The length of the article is 2331 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lincoln in his own words.(The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words by Ronald C. White)(Book Review)
Author: Daniel Sullivan
Publication: Policy Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 131 Page: 84(5)

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The Flight of Rudolf Hess: Myths and Reality
Roy Conyers; Acker, Georges Van Nesbit
Manufacturer: Sutton Publishing Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TZ4CKK

Book Description

'Many people thought if I became president it would mean the return of Hitler and Mussolini rolled into one . . . the imagined disaster has not taken place.' -- Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. The spectre of Simon Bolivar hovers once again over Latin America as the aims and ambitions of the Liberator are taken up by Comandante Hugo Chavez, the charismatic and controversial President of Venezuela. Welcomed by the inhabitants of the teeming shanty towns of Caracas as their potential saviour, and greeted by Washington with considerable alarm, this former golpista-turned-democrat has already begun the most wide-ranging transformation of oil-rich Venezuela for half a century, and dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin America. In a first-hand report from Venezuela, veteran correspondent Richard Gott places the Coman-dante in historical perspective, and examines his plans and programmes. He describes the support and opposition that these attract, and argues that this unique experiment may prove a new way forward for Latin America.

Customer Reviews:

Hugo Chavez is an inspiring leader for Latin Am & the world.......2005-04-04

President Hugo Chavez has been a fantastic leader for all people with a progressive, social conscience. He inherited a land where the overwhelming majority of the population lived in dismal poverty despite being the 5th largest oil producing nation in the world. A small, elite group of oligarchs, mostly white in a country largely mulatto and black, controlled the wealth and the country's valuable resources. As Richard Gott makes clear in his excellent book, appropriately titled, that not only documents modern Venezuelan history, but brings us all the way back to the very beginning: Spanish colonization, resistence and finally, liberation at the hands of revolutionary Simon Bolivar.

Now I must get into some of the vile responses and outright lies that have been made by other reviewers of this book. Some of their comments, like repeating the same exact quote over and over again, makes me wonder if it's one than one person writing this. Others define themselves as "Venezuelan exiles" who are now living in Florida. Let me tell you right now, if there are people going around calling themselves Venezuelan exiles and living in South Florida typing away on a computer, you better believe they are white and make up that top upper-income bracket that I alluded to earlier. Take a look at some of their obvious disdain and downright loathing of the poor, oppressed masses of poor Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority (thus showing their distaste for the Venezuelan people themselves) "I emphasize the word "educated", because it is no surprise that his demagogical approach results appealing to the lower-income strata of Venezuela"

Because Chavez nationalized the oil industry and decided to make Venezuela's resources to the benefit of the Venezuelan people, he has made enemies among the infamously right wing, and pro business corporate media in Latin America and its cousin in the United States, who relies on the general ignorance of most Americans on Latin America to defame a great leader. First off, Hugo Chavez is NOT a dictator! The man has had 6 or 7 elections in the past 5 years and has won each and every won of them! And might I add, with overwhelming majorities to the tune of 58% and 60%. In the latest recall effort, that was defeated by nearly 60% of the vote, it was affirmed as being fair by international observers, including former US President Jimmy Carter. NOW, let's compare that with the Bush regime and its "democratic" credientials. 2 Elections in 8 years. NO recall possible under the US Constitution (It was only possible in Venezuela thanks to the Constitution that the "dictator" Chavez made as a way of removing unpopular leaders and keeping them in check! Boy that Chavez! What a funny way of showing what a dictator is!) In 2000, Bush gets controversially "elected", loses the popular vote, no international observers, and needs the Supreme Court to do him in. Yet Bush and his reactionary allies on this board, have NO problem with calling Chavez "anti democratic" and "Totalitarian"

By the way, remember that coup of 2002? Supported by the Bush administration and the oligarchy? One of the first things the coup plotters did was DISBAND the Congress and the Supreme Court! Venezuela's democratic foundations. So who is the "authoritiarian" again? Not only that, but try asking the oligarchs where those coup plotters, those that tried to overthrow the democratically elected gov of Venezuela by force, are doing now? In America, they'd probably be sitting on death row. So where are they in Venezuela? In a mass grave? Sitting in a jail cell??? No! THEY ARE FREE! The Supreme Court of Venezuela let them go! And they walk as free men today! What a horrible dictator that Chavez is! An opposition media, an opposition mayor in Caracas, and COUP PLOTTERS GO FREE!

Hugo Chavez is anything but what his opponents claim and for the love of God, please don't believe everything you hear in the corporate media..of from wealthy, right wing Venezuelan exiles. Read Richard Gott.

Totally Biased.......2003-11-08

This book is a double edged sword. On the one hand it is the first and only(to my knowledge) account of the Hugo Chavez debacle in Venezuela. This volume documents the rise of Chavez. The failed coup, the army, the prison term and his present role as dictator-in-making of Venezuela. This is a fine account of the life of this controversial leader who embodies the 1970s communist idealism with the standard Latin American coup mentality and obsession with military strongmen. He is a caudillo in every sense of the word, except he is living in modern times when Caudilloism is no longer appreciated because it subverts democracy.

This book highlights the present problems in Venezuela. The major flaw here is the authors opinion that Chavez is a romantic communist who is reforming his country. Well this is just not true. Average Bolivians, especially the urban unions hate Mr. Chavez and the oil workers walked off the job to protest his treatment of them. Mr. Chavez is a typical leftist who has used divisive politics to `help' indigenous rural Indians and divide the country along race and wealth lines. In this he has failed, which is why the country came to an economic standstill last year. Chavez suspended the rule of law, arrested his political opponents and pounded his chest in daily 4 hour TV broadcasts. He is a disgusting gutter like gangster and the author doesn't look at this side of him at all. The author in point of fact was a writer on the guerrilla movements of the 60s in Latin America and has apparently been taken under the Chavez spell, because Chavez once met Castro, who is the authors hero. The book is terribly biased and does not tell the whole truth, namely that ordinary proletariat factory workers in Venezuela hate Chavez and his programs. He has systematically crushed the unions in his attempt at dictatorship.

Worthless and outdated. Gott owes an update to his readers.......2003-10-27

This appears to be just another propaganda pamphlet paid by the Chavez administration. This book omits facts that not even the well paid P.R. machinery have denied such as the wild increment in poverty and misery indexes as well as the index for administrative corruption and crime to levels unheard of during the previous Venezuelan governments.
There are lots of other maladies created or incremented during this tragic (and comedic) regime that one does not expect to read about in a book like this one since they could be construed as subjective, such as the horrendous administration of public funds, the blatant intromission of the Cuban government and its intelligence services in Venezuela's internal affairs, the destruction of the Venezuelan economy while having more oil revenue than in the last 20 years together. But leaving out documented facts as the ones briefly mentioned at the beginning of this review just makes this book worthless of any credibility.
Hugo Chavez bought himself a brand new Airbus 320, which he had repainted because he did not like that paint scheme previously ordered (total tab: over $15 million), while Yanomami (Amazonian native) children starve in the streets of Caracas (so much for the rights of indigenous people) and hospital do not have gauze, syringes or clean water. The Venezuelan Left have distanced its self from Chavez in disbelief. I did not read about any of that either.
Many things have happened since this book was published. Luis Miquelena abandoned Chavez, Chavez was briefly ousted in April 2002 only to return in the wings of the horrible mistakes of the ousters, Marisabel Chavez left the president in a much-publicized public dispute in the best tradition of the cheesiest soap opera, the country is in fact living a much worse disaster (an orgy of corruption and violence) than that imagined before Chavez's rise to power.
For its objectivity and informative value this book is not worth much. For historic value it probably will hold a prominent place with Ignacio Ramonet's articles in Le Monde Diplomatique and others, as the flies that made their party around the stinkiest garbage can in Latin America and got handsomely paid for it. Enjoy Mr. Gott!

What the..........2003-10-08

This might be just another of the well paid efforts of the Venezuelan Goverment to improve its international image with the nation's taxpayers money. This country is on the verge of civil war thanks to its communist and authoritarian tendencies. Anyone who likes dictatorship should back this holdum we have as a president.

Fool yourself at your own risk........2003-05-27

It is hard to talk about Chavez without emotion, without passion for me. I left Venezuela over three years ago because I decided I didn't want my family to be raised in what was to come (and I don't regret having left), so I will not deny that I am an open anti-chavista. Now, on to this author and his views...

First of all, the period covered in the book (before 2000) could be a pretext for the author's views, since (like he did in his book), many intellectuals, leftwing and not-so-leftwing too, were supportive of the Lieutenant Colonel back until 2001 even: after all and although I did not like him from the start, Chavez could have been a true alternative to decades of corruption and traditional politics in Venezuela. Also many, many middle-class, educated people (to my dismay, some still to this day) supported him. I emphasize the word "educated", because it is no surprise that his demagogical approach results appealing to the lower-income strata of Venezuela, much like it was the case with previous Presidents.

On a side note, I saw the reaction that a figure like Castro provoked in the media in Venezuela (in case you're wondering, I am from Venezuela) during the visit for the ceremony where Carlos Andres Perez took on the presidency for the second time: they were running around Castro like puppies, fascinated my the "comandante". Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that Gott acknowledges that "reporters have always been susceptible to the charms of Latin America's radical strongmen, and I am no exception".

What's my point here? Gott's views cannot be excused as being accidentally biased in this book, simply because Chavez had not taken his mask off by the time he wrote his book, allowing the unaccounted deaths of dozens of his opposers, the looting of the country's main industry (PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company), and the gradual shut-down of the economy leading to shortages in basic foods and medicines. Gott's views (is it coincidence that his last name means "God" in German?) had not changed much by early 2003....

This book is just another leftist manifesto, supportive of the barbaric attrocities of a regime who is perfectly willing to say with a straight face that the country cannot be in better shape and blame the opposition for everything, while inflation, unemployment and several other macroeconomic indicators are at their worse levels in over a century, in spite of the fact that the country has over $16 billion in international reserves. Sadly, I can't say that I entirely support the work of the opposition either, one that has come out of the struggle against Chavez as a fragmented block, and one that doesn't show enough signs of acknowledgement that politics-as-we-know-it will no longer work in Venezuela after this past few years of political and social nightmare.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on January 1, 2001. The length of the article is 2861 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: No idiocy like educated idiocy.(Review) (book review)
Author: Anthony Daniels
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2001
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 19 Issue: 5 Page: 67

Article Type: Book Review

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Kinship with Nature

Addressing previous criticism on this page

Extraordinary--If You Read One Book This Year, Read This One

The Green Spiritual Manifesto

A thoughtful and well-written plea for Mother Earth!

The Lost Gospel of the Earth: A Call for Renewing Nature, Spirit and Politics
Tom Hayden
Manufacturer: Ig Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | 20th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Conservation | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
General | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0977197247

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Drawing upon the work of John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, St. Francis of Assisi, and even the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II, activist Tom Hayden writes that religion is the answer to today's environmental crisis. Though he berates many religions for perpetuating man's dominance of earth, he cites a growing awareness of the sanctity of all creation. He calls for the unification of increasing numbers of eco-spiritualists and a revamping of traditional religious doctrines--including the Ten Commandments--to include guidelines for taking care of the earth and to acknowledge the dependency of our own lives on its healthful existence.

Book Description

More timely and necessary than ever in the wake of recent calamities like Hurricane Katrina and the Republican war against the environment, The Lost Gospel of the Earth is legendary activist Tom Hayden's eco-spiritual call for revamping traditional religious doctrine to reflect a greater environmental consciousness, which he believes is the only way to save the planet from catastrophe. Drawing upon the historical seeds of the major world religions-Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, as well as Native American traditions-Hayden shows how only an enlightened partnership between religion, politics and the natural world can reverse the environmental disaster we have heaped upon the planet and lead to a rediscovery of the lost gospel of the earth.

This all-new edition of The Lost Gospel of the Earth has been completely revised and updated to reflect the major developments of the past decade.

Praise for the original edition of The Lost Gospel of the Earth

"... a lucid analysis of how the errant path we have taken [has] led us to a state of fundamental alienation from the elemental world."- San Francisco Chronicle

"... beautifully argued and well-written..."- Publishers Weekly

"... provocative, well-researched, and well-argued..."- Library Journal

"Such a book is urgently needed. Tom Hayden is precisely the person to do it."-Thomas Berry

Customer Reviews:

Kinship with Nature.......2005-12-01

This book deserves 5 stars based solely on the importance of the subject. Tom Hayden describes three types of relationship that we as humans can have with Nature: dominion, stewardship, or kinship. He correctly concludes that only reestablishing a kinship relationship with Nature offers humans and Earth's other inhabitants any kind of future. In 1982 Paul Shepard published "Nature and Madness" (also Sierra Club)which also pointed a finger at mainstream religion's role in the enviromental crisis. So Hayden's basic thesis in not entirely new.

Addressing previous criticism on this page.......2004-09-09

Tom Hayden's work in this text, while not perfect, illustrates some legitimate concerns about religion's role in the environmental crisis. To discredit this work based on his background or denounce the writing as "sophistry" would be a poor evaluation.

The work is worth reading, and if necessary, refuting based on the content.

Extraordinary--If You Read One Book This Year, Read This One.......1998-10-11

This is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. It addresses a fundamental question now facing humanity: will we continue to delude ourselves that we are lords of the universe, that the Earth is ours to do with as we please, or will we come to understand and acknowledge our kinship with nature and the Earth, and our utter dependence upon them for our survival? There is a great spiritual division in our society today. One man or woman walks through a redwood forest, and sees the hand of God at work; another walks through the same forest and sees only board-feet. Which viewpoint ultimately wins over the hearts, minds, and allegiance of our species will determine whether or not we survive. Hayden realizes that if we come to understand the "immanence of the divine" in all creation, we can shape the future of politics to protect it. This is very heartening; "Lost Gospel" is not another hand-wringing book which offers us no guidance. By the way, the first reader review is a classic illustration of this chasm between viewpoints. How anyone at all familiar with the environmental record of the former Soviet bloc could confuse todays Greens with yesterday's Reds has me scratching both my green cover and my red, curly head! There is no need to look for an ulterior motive or hidden agenda to explain environmentalist passions. The goal is to save the Earth. Environmentalism is not a means to any other end, be it restriction of private property rights or anything else.

The Green Spiritual Manifesto.......1998-04-06

There has been a backlash against the environmental movement initiated by corporations that do not want to be regulated. By an immense stroke of luck, they have found allies in the Christian Right. Let's face it. The environmentalists are losing. Wilderness is on the verge of becoming a theme park. Because of pollution, the rates of various types of cancer are rising. Too many good people are silent, and those who are speaking out appeal almost exclusively to utilitarian and scientific reasoning. Unfortunately, this does not affect people at their deep emotional core--as religion can do. Hayden argues persuasively for the greening of Christianity, Buddhism and other religions. He cites St. Francis, Hildegard of Bingen, and the vow of the Bodhisattvas to protect all beings. He calls for a new Martin Luther to "nail a Green Spiritual Manifesto on the vaulted doors of the powerful." He says we should appeal to spirituality, because people ARE spiritual beings.

A thoughtful and well-written plea for Mother Earth!.......1998-03-28

...Well, I read this book and found it very rich ( although not exhaustive ) in its attempt to search out the religious/spiritual sources of our alienation from the earth. Hayden is looking in the right places here; the environmental problem is wholly a spiritual/moral issue. How can we honor the Creator whilst heaping contempt upon Creation? So clear to me; so impossible for others...to see. A great book, Tom!

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