Edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014
Published for the centenary of his birth.
Published in Chinese by Sun Yat-sen University Press, Guangzhou, 2022
Thomas Berry (1914-2009) was a cultural historian and “geologian.” He was an early and significant voice awakening religious sensibilities to the environmental crisis. He is particularly well-known for articulating a “universe story” that explores the world-changing implications of the contemporary science. Berry pointed the way to an ecological spirituality attuned to our place in nature and giving rise to an ethic of responsibility and care for the Earth.
Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community was featured by Ursula King, emeritus professor of theology and religious studies at the University of Bristol, in Times Higher Education on August 24, 2017:
“The prophetic voice of the American eco-philosopher Thomas Berry (1914-2009) is still too little known. Yet his creative engagement with the great ecological crises of our time and his new understanding of the history of evolution as a story in whose further development humans are critically involved attracts an ever larger international following. What can be difficult is to find one’s way around his numerous works. The editors of this book, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, have done a marvellous job of presenting the heart of Berry’s thought. We hear about ‘Living a New Story’ and ‘The Great Work’ and the wisdom required from human beings to live in a mutually enhancing relationship with Earth and the Earth community. This is a most inspiring read to which I shall return again and again.”
We are honored to share a message by Robert Ellsberg, the publisher of Orbis Books, concerning the publication of this book:
Berry’s wisdom shines through so powerfully—his logic feels so irresistible that you wish you could put this in the hands of every legislator, teacher, spiritual leader. This is so much the wisdom we need to attend to. Parts of it are just breathtakingly poignant—when you think about what we are doing to the Earth, and the price to be paid—not only by our descendants but by so many innocent species. This is not just an essential guide to Berry’s thought. This is an ESSENTIAL spiritual handbook for the human species.
