In the Spirit of the Earth: Rethinking History and Time - Brossura

Martin, Prof Calvin Luther Luther

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0801847095 ISBN 13: 9780801847097

Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993

Riassunto

This meditation by an award winning historian calls for a new way oflooking at the natural world and our place in it, while boldly challenging theassumptions that underlie the way we teach and think about both history andtime. Calvin Luther Martin's In the Spirit of the Earth is a provocativeaccount of how the hunter-gatherer image of nature was lost—with devastatingconsequences for the environment and the human spirit. According to Martin, our current ideas about nature emerged during neolithictimes, as humans began to domesticate animals and farm the land. In thehunter-gatherer mind, animals and plants were spiritual beings and the earth areliable provider. But in neolithic innovations Martin finds the roots of ourown curiously alienated relationship with other living things and with theearth itself. This alienation is revealed not only in our artifice—thetechnology that moves us further and further away from nature—but even in theway we speak about the world. It is revealed most dramatically, perhaps, inthe horrific destruction we have visited on animals and landscapes. Martin sees the shift to agricultural economies as a change in spiritual imagination. This new approach to food getting meant a new understanding ofourselves and the world—a new, powerful image of the self relative to plantsand animals. It led to food surpluses, a population boom, the appearance ofcities and ceremonial centers, and the emergence of priestly classes and rulingelites—in short, to all the achievements, follies, and horrors of"civilization." Martin argues that history—his own discipline—and human centered historicalconsciousness lie at the heart of this ultimately destructive ideology. Notions of order and progress, of a chosen people and linear time, fuel oursense that the world is ours to improve, exploit, and even destroy. We need torediscover the wisdom and sanity of less presumptuous ideas of nature—aprocess that demands a much lar

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Recensione

"It just may be a sign that the wind is turning when a Rutgersprofessor of history writes a book (and gets it published)debunking historical time and civilization... Martin finds, inneolithic time consciousness, a key ingredient in the control ofthe natural world, and locates the 'ideological origins of humanbondage' in animal domestication."

(Alternative Press Review)

"Martin has given us a new map for imagining the world around us and our place in it."

(Hungry Mind Review)

"Eloquently, Calvin Martin speaks again to the major issues that define human existence in our time. In the Spirit of the Earth is a fascinating evocation of our past and of our future. It is a vision of the spiritual imagination of humankind, centered and sharply defined. It ought to be read carefully and considered deeply. It is an important book."

(N. Scott Momaday, author of House Made of Dawn)

"A compelling indictment of 'history's hammerlock on our imagination' and apassionate inquest into the possibility of a new historical consciousnessresponsible as much to the rest of nature as it is to humankind."

(Hayden White)

Descrizione del libro

As we prepare to count a new millennium, an award-winning historian questions the very nature of "historical time."

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0801847095
• ISBN 13: 9780801847097
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 176