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The Dream of the Earth
This landmark work, first published by Sierra Club Books in 1988, has established itself as a foundational volume in the ecological canon. In it, noted cultural historian Thomas Berry provides nothing less than a new intellectual-ethical framework for the human community by positing planetary well-being as the measure of all human activity.
Drawing on the wisdom of Western philosophy, Asian thought, and Native American traditions, as well as contemporary physics and evolutionary biology, Berry offers a new perspective that recasts our understanding of science, technology, politics, religion, ecology, and education. He shows us why it is important for us to respond to the Earth’s need for planetary renewal, and what we must do to break free of the “technological trance” that drives a misguided dream of progress. Only then, he suggests, can we foster mutually enhancing human-Earth relationships that can heal our traumatized global biosystem.
Drawing on the wisdom of Western philosophy, Asian thought, and Native American traditions, as well as contemporary physics and evolutionary biology, Berry offers a new perspective that recasts our understanding of science, technology, politics, religion, ecology, and education. He shows us why it is important for us to respond to the Earth’s need for planetary renewal, and what we must do to break free of the “technological trance” that drives a misguided dream of progress. Only then, he suggests, can we foster mutually enhancing human-Earth relationships that can heal our traumatized global biosystem.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
April 16, 2017
It took me forever to get through this relatively short book, due to both the dry, academic prose and the sheer number of interesting ideas per page. Although it is a challenging read--and, in some ways, a bit dated--it is definitely worth the attention of anyone with a serious interest in environmental philosophy.
The core of the message is simple: We absolutely have to find a new way of relating to the earth, or we will destroy it, and thus destroy ourselves. All of our current modes of being--in economics, religion, science, politics--are not only insufficient, but contributing to the problem.
Or as Barry puts it: "Our secular, rational, industrial society, with its amazing scientific insight and technological skills, has established the first radically anthropocentric society and has thereby broken the primary law of the universe, the law that every component member of the universe should be integral with every other member of the universe and that the primary norm of reality and of value is the universe community itself in its various forms of expression, especially as realized on the planet Earth."
I enjoyed how he broke down his argument into different segments, such as how science and commerce and our own historical world view (the latter going back to the Middle Ages in the beginnings of this pathology, which provided a new and interesting perspective for me), but the most convincing argument was, for me, the spiritual one:
"We should be clear about what happens when we destroy the living forms of this planet. The first consequence is that we destroy modes of divine presence. If we have a wonderful sense of the divine, it is because we live amid such awesome magnificence." Yes, this!!! A million times over!
I did find it interesting that, although the author was a Catholic priest of the Passionist order, his religious views are quite nonconformist and would probably upset many main stream Christians. He believes that the emphasis on personal salvation and the insistence that we live in a fallen world detract from the experience of our connection with natural world--the sort of nature mysticism of traditional Native American religions, for example. He shows how this view helped to lead to the industrial plundering of the earth (sorry about all the quotes in this review, but Berry just says things so much better):
"Just as the doctrine of divine transcendence took away the pervasive divine presence to the natural world, so the millennial vision of a blessed future left all present modes of existence in a degraded status. All things were in an unholy condition. Everything needed to be transformed. This meant that anything unused was to be used if the very purpose of its existence was to be realized. Nothing in its natural state was acceptable."
And:
"The Christian world is the world of the city. Its concerns are primarily supernatural. The rural world is the world of the pagan. The natural world is to be kept at a distance as a seductive mode of being."
Actually, I would be extremely interested to read a thoughtful, ecologically aware Christian response to these arguments, as my gut instinct says that Berry's view would be considered heretical, and yet I know that many Christians are concerned about the environment. I would hate for the Ann Coulters and Sarah Palins of this world to drown them out. And yet Coulter and Palin are obviously building upon a dynamic--and extremely destructive--cultural foundation when they so vociferously insist that the earth exists only for our consumption. I wonder what Berry would say about them if he were still alive today.
I copied down pages upon pages of quotes from this book--the author's insights were just that amazing. It's tempting to keep sharing more of them, but instead I'll recommend that everyone who loves the earth read this book. My one quibble with it (besides the stilted prose) was that I found it to be a complete downer (probably one of the reasons I could only read it in small doses). Writing in 1988, Berry seems to believe that we were on the cusp of a new ecological paradigm. If anything, the opposite is true. Every day I am bombarded with depressing news about more and more drilling, mining, fracking, and logging carried out on public lands. Entire mountain tops are being blown sky-high in Appalachia for coal production. The keystone XL pipeline has just been approved by one of the most aggressively exploitative presidents in history. Native rights are being trampled at Standing Rock and elsewhere. It is enough to make one weep, and I sometimes do. Unfortunately, some thirty years later, Berry's Dream of the Earth seems just that, a lovely dream that never came true.
The core of the message is simple: We absolutely have to find a new way of relating to the earth, or we will destroy it, and thus destroy ourselves. All of our current modes of being--in economics, religion, science, politics--are not only insufficient, but contributing to the problem.
Or as Barry puts it: "Our secular, rational, industrial society, with its amazing scientific insight and technological skills, has established the first radically anthropocentric society and has thereby broken the primary law of the universe, the law that every component member of the universe should be integral with every other member of the universe and that the primary norm of reality and of value is the universe community itself in its various forms of expression, especially as realized on the planet Earth."
I enjoyed how he broke down his argument into different segments, such as how science and commerce and our own historical world view (the latter going back to the Middle Ages in the beginnings of this pathology, which provided a new and interesting perspective for me), but the most convincing argument was, for me, the spiritual one:
"We should be clear about what happens when we destroy the living forms of this planet. The first consequence is that we destroy modes of divine presence. If we have a wonderful sense of the divine, it is because we live amid such awesome magnificence." Yes, this!!! A million times over!
I did find it interesting that, although the author was a Catholic priest of the Passionist order, his religious views are quite nonconformist and would probably upset many main stream Christians. He believes that the emphasis on personal salvation and the insistence that we live in a fallen world detract from the experience of our connection with natural world--the sort of nature mysticism of traditional Native American religions, for example. He shows how this view helped to lead to the industrial plundering of the earth (sorry about all the quotes in this review, but Berry just says things so much better):
"Just as the doctrine of divine transcendence took away the pervasive divine presence to the natural world, so the millennial vision of a blessed future left all present modes of existence in a degraded status. All things were in an unholy condition. Everything needed to be transformed. This meant that anything unused was to be used if the very purpose of its existence was to be realized. Nothing in its natural state was acceptable."
And:
"The Christian world is the world of the city. Its concerns are primarily supernatural. The rural world is the world of the pagan. The natural world is to be kept at a distance as a seductive mode of being."
Actually, I would be extremely interested to read a thoughtful, ecologically aware Christian response to these arguments, as my gut instinct says that Berry's view would be considered heretical, and yet I know that many Christians are concerned about the environment. I would hate for the Ann Coulters and Sarah Palins of this world to drown them out. And yet Coulter and Palin are obviously building upon a dynamic--and extremely destructive--cultural foundation when they so vociferously insist that the earth exists only for our consumption. I wonder what Berry would say about them if he were still alive today.
I copied down pages upon pages of quotes from this book--the author's insights were just that amazing. It's tempting to keep sharing more of them, but instead I'll recommend that everyone who loves the earth read this book. My one quibble with it (besides the stilted prose) was that I found it to be a complete downer (probably one of the reasons I could only read it in small doses). Writing in 1988, Berry seems to believe that we were on the cusp of a new ecological paradigm. If anything, the opposite is true. Every day I am bombarded with depressing news about more and more drilling, mining, fracking, and logging carried out on public lands. Entire mountain tops are being blown sky-high in Appalachia for coal production. The keystone XL pipeline has just been approved by one of the most aggressively exploitative presidents in history. Native rights are being trampled at Standing Rock and elsewhere. It is enough to make one weep, and I sometimes do. Unfortunately, some thirty years later, Berry's Dream of the Earth seems just that, a lovely dream that never came true.
September 19, 2008
Required reading for everyone on the planet.
March 15, 2016
My first impressions of this book were that it is not particularly "well-written." I had a hard time gelling with Berry's writing style, and I never did quite get the hang of it. It had the feel of being second-rate. I shouldn't say that first off, but there it is.
That said, I must also say that its ideas are powerful and compelling. I will explain by listing the ways it inspired me, the things it inspired me to learn more about:
1. the sequence and detail of the galactic cosmology
2. the sequential phases of human development, from Paleolithic to ecological (into which we are currently transitioning)
3. the great classical cultures of the world and their achievements
4. the scientific-technological phase of human development itself, considering power, harms, helps, and ramifications
5. the possibilities of the new ecological age
6. the rediscovery of foundations for human values
The book provoked a lot of interest in the above, and there are many, many references to further reading in these and other areas. If for no other reason, these inspirations are worth the read. In the midst of everything else in my life, it took me years to explore these things further, but I have in my way, and I still do. I owe something to Berry for the motivation I still have.
In the end, Berry concludes that we need more visionary consciousness and less blind reliance on reason. This conclusion ties things together well. It is the "shamanic personalities" that must be the guides as we move forward to a new relationship with the earth.
That said, I must also say that its ideas are powerful and compelling. I will explain by listing the ways it inspired me, the things it inspired me to learn more about:
1. the sequence and detail of the galactic cosmology
2. the sequential phases of human development, from Paleolithic to ecological (into which we are currently transitioning)
3. the great classical cultures of the world and their achievements
4. the scientific-technological phase of human development itself, considering power, harms, helps, and ramifications
5. the possibilities of the new ecological age
6. the rediscovery of foundations for human values
The book provoked a lot of interest in the above, and there are many, many references to further reading in these and other areas. If for no other reason, these inspirations are worth the read. In the midst of everything else in my life, it took me years to explore these things further, but I have in my way, and I still do. I owe something to Berry for the motivation I still have.
In the end, Berry concludes that we need more visionary consciousness and less blind reliance on reason. This conclusion ties things together well. It is the "shamanic personalities" that must be the guides as we move forward to a new relationship with the earth.
May 21, 2015
It's strange reading a fervent environmental call to action almost thirty years after its publication, sitting in a world worse off than the one which inspired its writing. An important book.
September 28, 2009
Thomas Berry, a monastic who chose to use his solitude to study everything from comparative religion and philosophy to agricultural production and particle physics, has synthesized his wide and deep knowledge in this volume with a thoughtfulness rare in this or any age. The book is a call to awaken to a new and more productive geopolitical paradigm involving a recognition of the rights of the earth and all its inhabitants. Reading it is like being blessed with a new set of eyes with which to see the world.
September 8, 2018
Very insightful ideas regarding the connections with our planet. I found Thomas Berry's explanations for the dream of the earth and the solutions to our current ecological crisis innovative and encouraging.
January 5, 2009
We need more voices like Thomas Berry.
December 22, 2010
One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.
The Dream of the Earth is a collection of essays which all advance a deeply spiritual and ecological interpretation of the world, its current woes and potential solutions. Berry believes we understand and interpret the world and our role within it based on our 'story of the universe', our dream or world-view. The story is the source of a society's collective psyche and not only explains the past, but also guides our future. While other animals have their behaviour embedded in their DNA, we humans need stories to find our way and understand what to do.
The underlying theme of the book is that our vision, or dream, of progress has brought a lot of good, but is now sowing the seeds of its own destruction. This is because we have lost our connection to the planet, a connection that has existed since ancient times and today remains only with some indigenous communities. Our story has become corrupted, or empty of deep meaning.
The Dream of the Earth is a collection of essays which all advance a deeply spiritual and ecological interpretation of the world, its current woes and potential solutions. Berry believes we understand and interpret the world and our role within it based on our 'story of the universe', our dream or world-view. The story is the source of a society's collective psyche and not only explains the past, but also guides our future. While other animals have their behaviour embedded in their DNA, we humans need stories to find our way and understand what to do.
The underlying theme of the book is that our vision, or dream, of progress has brought a lot of good, but is now sowing the seeds of its own destruction. This is because we have lost our connection to the planet, a connection that has existed since ancient times and today remains only with some indigenous communities. Our story has become corrupted, or empty of deep meaning.
February 6, 2013
I have tried so hard to like Thomas Berry.
I give up. I can't do it. Dense, unreadable prose based on the sketchiest types of half-evidence, stitched together with such slender chains of reasoning that a good sneeze could rip it apart. Nice ideas. Lovely philosophy. A wonderful world would result if, indeed, there were any basis for his proposals or if they were implementable by animals with the sorts of brains human beings have. But they're not, and I can't waste one more second of my life believing that there is anything useful to be learned from a book that makes the argument that there were pre-partriarchal women-ruled societies in which the environment was treated well. Mr. Berry, you meant well, and I respect you as an ally; but to all his successors, I beg of you, please sully yourself with some form of actual evidence, and stop confusing "fact" with "someone else's opinion that you found in print."
I give up. I can't do it. Dense, unreadable prose based on the sketchiest types of half-evidence, stitched together with such slender chains of reasoning that a good sneeze could rip it apart. Nice ideas. Lovely philosophy. A wonderful world would result if, indeed, there were any basis for his proposals or if they were implementable by animals with the sorts of brains human beings have. But they're not, and I can't waste one more second of my life believing that there is anything useful to be learned from a book that makes the argument that there were pre-partriarchal women-ruled societies in which the environment was treated well. Mr. Berry, you meant well, and I respect you as an ally; but to all his successors, I beg of you, please sully yourself with some form of actual evidence, and stop confusing "fact" with "someone else's opinion that you found in print."
May 9, 2024
Kind of the intellectual equivalent of an accidentally great low-budget 80s action movie. Iykyk
September 26, 2009
now I own it
from the library computer:
Publishers Weekly Reviews
This first volume in a new series, the Sierra Club Nature and Natural Philosophy Library, explores human-earth relations and seeks a new, non-anthropocentric approach to the natural world. According to cultural historian Berry, our immediate danger is not nuclear war but industrial plundering; our entire society, he argues, is trapped in a closed cycle of production and consumption. Berry points out that our perception of the earth is the product of cultural conditioning, and that most of us fail to think of ourselves as a species but rather as national, ethnic, religious or economic groups. Describing education as ``a process of cultural coding somewhat parallel to genetic coding,'' he proposes a curriculum based on awareness of the earth. He discusses ``patriarchy'' as a new interpretation of Western historical development, naming four patriachies that have controlled Western history, becoming progressively destructive: the classical empires, the ecclesiastical establishment, the nation-state and the modern corporation. We must reject partial solutions and embrace profound changes toward a ``biocracy'' that will heal the earth, urges the author who defines problems and causes with eloquence. (October) Copyright 1988 Cahners Business Information.
from the library computer:
Publishers Weekly Reviews
This first volume in a new series, the Sierra Club Nature and Natural Philosophy Library, explores human-earth relations and seeks a new, non-anthropocentric approach to the natural world. According to cultural historian Berry, our immediate danger is not nuclear war but industrial plundering; our entire society, he argues, is trapped in a closed cycle of production and consumption. Berry points out that our perception of the earth is the product of cultural conditioning, and that most of us fail to think of ourselves as a species but rather as national, ethnic, religious or economic groups. Describing education as ``a process of cultural coding somewhat parallel to genetic coding,'' he proposes a curriculum based on awareness of the earth. He discusses ``patriarchy'' as a new interpretation of Western historical development, naming four patriachies that have controlled Western history, becoming progressively destructive: the classical empires, the ecclesiastical establishment, the nation-state and the modern corporation. We must reject partial solutions and embrace profound changes toward a ``biocracy'' that will heal the earth, urges the author who defines problems and causes with eloquence. (October) Copyright 1988 Cahners Business Information.
August 24, 2012
Wonderful to read -- he writes with the language of a philosopher, though I think it's clearer and more direct than most people think of as philosophy. I found it beautiful and inspiring. Probably my favorite part is that he reminds us every three pages that humans are closing down the basic life systems of the planet. Awful, but it's surprisingly nice to hear someone say it how it is.
His ideas can be challenging, but I think they're right on.
His ideas can be challenging, but I think they're right on.
Read
December 3, 2013I would rate this as a better book that "The Great Work", if only because it is more prescient (written a decade earlier), as it contains all of the main ideas, developed sufficiently enough.
I am considering using Chpt 8, "The American College in the Ecological Age" (pp. 89-108) as a reading for a freshman seminar discussion. It is as timely now as it was 20 years ago.
I am considering using Chpt 8, "The American College in the Ecological Age" (pp. 89-108) as a reading for a freshman seminar discussion. It is as timely now as it was 20 years ago.
February 12, 2012
Berry's eyes, mind, and heart were wide open. He could see the connectivity of everything, he had the ability to convey the unity of all things eloquently, and thus he enabled us to know better the love of the Other in which all must fully live, move, and have our being..
December 20, 2012
A very important book, although the reading is a bit of a slog at times. Berry is an erudite, sometimes academic, writer. Still, well worth it because the history and his message about the future is critical for our times.
November 16, 2017
Extraordinary. If you haven't read this book, read it NOW. If you have, read it again. It changed the way I see myself as a part of the universe and not separate from it, and has helped me to articulate my own vocation. Absolutely essential reading.
July 24, 2012
This book changed my life.
Thought provoking.
Thought provoking.
January 22, 2019
Affirmed my view of the living universe. It was depressing that the warnings about species extinction and the destruction of our home were issued in the 80s! Have we passed a point of no return?
November 1, 2025
I think Berry's diagnosis of the ailment of our era is pretty much spot-on. In our embrace of a myth of human power and the need to makeover the Earth in our own image, we have alienated ourselves from the very cosmic life forces that make that power possible. Talk about ingratitude! I found his diagnosis to be somewhat redundant though, which while making it easier to excerpt whole chapters from this book into anthologies, made also for some tedious reading at times. When it comes to his prescription for what ails us, I found it to be more suggestive than substantive, which is probably unavoidable given the scope and unprecedented nature of what he is calling for, but I also found myself skeptical that reflective discourse can call forth the sort of response to the cosmos that he thinks we need. It seems to me that it has to come forth organically from what Hegel dubbed the "labor of the negative" and what form that will take is anybody's guess. That's not to say that we can afford to just kick back and "trust Mother Earth" to show us the way, but I also don't think the creative wellsprings Berry invokes will kick in until necessity and tragedy force them to the surface. One might also find some cold comfort in the inhumanist credo of a Robinson Jeffers, for whom a natural world of living creatures sans homo sapiens was not a worst-case scenario.
August 28, 2020
“We can understand this Peace of Earth, however, only if we understand that the earth is a single community composed of all its geological, biological, and human components. The Peace of Earth is Indivisible. In this context the nations have a referent outside themselves for resolving their difficulties. The earth fulfills this role of mediator in several ways. First, the earth is a single organic reality that must survive in its integrity if it is to support any nation on the earth. To save the earth is a necessity for every nation. No part of the earth in its essential functioning can be the exclusive possession or concern of any nation. The air cannot be nationalized or privatized; it must circulate everywhere on the planet to fulfill its life giving function anywhere on the planet. It must be available for the nonhuman as well as for the human lifeforms if it is to sustain human life. So it is with the waters on the earth. They must circulate throughout the planet if they are to benefit any of the lifeforms on the planet.”
July 16, 2017
This collection of essays broadly addresses the ecological despair facing all the Earth, how humans are causing this despair and the ways in which it will impinge on human existence. Rather than offer specific analysis or solution, Berry presents some themes of underpinning philosophy arising from Christianity, Western culture and economics in particular that have lead to this state of despair and changes or new directions for creating a viable future. He connects the human past, in historical, cosmological, and genetic senses, as a starting point for this future. These essays are worth a consideration on all counts.
May 15, 2019
This is a very interesting set of essays, outlining the patterns of life in the world, demonstrating the problems associated with modern cosmology, and proposing a new cosmology. While some essays have become outdated as our understanding of evolution and anthropology changes, the majority have become even more relevant and important to the situation we find ourselves in. The need for a story which integrates us into the community of life on Earth has only grown since this was written. I would recommend this to anyone concerned with spiritual or ecological issues facing the world.
September 29, 2020
"As Chief Seattle once said of us and our cities: 'When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the mystery of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone.'"
December 17, 2019
© 1988 ***½. Early book on the subject of ecology and the place of humans in the biosphere. Explains well how a bioregion works as a unit and how all life is dependent on humans working together with the natural forces of the earth. Acknowledges the dignity and respect due to the planet as a whole, and to the awesome diversity of life present here and nowhere else for light-years around.
February 22, 2022
Like other reviewers I noticed, I didn't get on too well with this book. The author seems to have an impressive scientific background, and the content often seems philosophical, but it was not easy reading for me and I do wonder if it is somehow dated a bit. He probably deserves better than a 3, but that's about what I got out of it.
October 31, 2025
Spiritual claptrap: the earth doesn't, "dream": the universe doesn't "express itself." And being so out of touch with the actualities of the human species, aside from our self-serving spirituality, or is that "delusional," he means little in the vast scheme of things.
Hopeful yes, realistic, no.
Cynical...me.
Hopeful yes, realistic, no.
Cynical...me.
December 22, 2021
pairs well with: How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell :)
I loved this book. Very dense and slow to get through, but Berry paints a beautiful image of restoring relationship with all beings, all kin, all of earth.
I loved this book. Very dense and slow to get through, but Berry paints a beautiful image of restoring relationship with all beings, all kin, all of earth.
July 2, 2022
The OG Story of Interbeing - I loved this book by a reclusive Catholic monk. In particular his exploration of how Christianity in particular laid the groundwork for the industrial scientific mythology and widespread destruction of nature.
June 8, 2023
Absolutely amazing piece of writing. Thomas Berry is so insightful and the dilemma is so eloquently put. Hard to believe it was written so long ago when 'progress' today feels more rapid than ever. Everyone should read this book.
January 15, 2018
A theological basis for environmentalism. Great book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews