Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 176 pages
- Published by: Oxford University Press, USA November 23, 2000
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0192862189
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0192862181
-
Book Dimensions:
7.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
- Weighs: 1.6 ounces
Reader Reviews
Simply written, mythically convincing, and conveying an idea--Gaia--so evident to the intuitive feel of life here that it's hard even to summon the will to question it. Lovelock treads difficult ground. Apparently unaware of depth psychology's amplifications of the "anima mundi," the World Soul described by Plato and so many aboriginal socities, Lovelock seeks to move the proof into the realm of science without sounding--in this book--overly scientific. One could wish he'd dreamed into the Gaia image more deeply and less literally. At the same time, empirical research could go a long way toward establishing the systemic, globe-regulating processes he envisions in this book. Whether such science would convince those who benefit financially from colonizing and exploiting the world's resources is open to question. While I don't share the author's optimistic belief in Gaia's capacity to regulate herself despite our ever-increasing power to disrupt her systems, I admire the attempt to give current form to an ancient idea...an idea with tremendous archetypal punch and relevancy. If you buy this book, use it as a point of departure--into biology, ecology, or ecopsychology, perhaps. Or into that state of humility that pauses to wonder what the world is thinking and feeling.
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