Synopses & Reviews
A valuable and documented source.
--Choice
Ferkiss has navigated an exceedingly complex course through our philosophical history, tracing the lineage of ideas about nature and technology as they evolved from ancient times through Taoism, industrialism, Marxism, and several other `isms.'
>--Sierra Magazine
Offers a colorful, concise, and well-written survey of formal thought on the role of science and technology.
--Policy Currents
Worldwide in its scope and reach, Ferkiss's book encompasses ethics and technology, society, and international relations--a true renaissance perspective. It is written clearly and without trepidations.
--Amitai Etzioni, author of The Moral Dimension
A valuable overview of conceptions of nature, science, and technology since ancient times. Anyone concerned with global environmental issues will benefit from its temperate, even- handed treatment of the hundreds of thinkers who have participated in great age-old debate over the human conquest of the earth and its resources.
--W. Warren Wagar, Distinguished Teaching Professor, SUNY, Binghamton
A fine book . . . an excellent source book [and] a valuable reference work, one of those books that belong on the shelf, near at hand, in the collection of any serious student of environmentalism and the history of technology. It will be consulted often.
--Walter Rosenbaum, University of Florida, author of Environmental Politics and Policy
An extraordinary achievement--a dazzling scholarly tour de force that is so clearly and elegantly written that readers are gripped by the superb story [Ferkiss] tells. It is the story of what may be the central issue of our time--humanity's relationship with nature. . . . Perhaps no scholar on earth is better equipped to tell this story. . . . [Ferkiss] exhibits an extraordinary command of the subject as he takes readers on a fascinating guided tour through Western and Eastern culture, beautifully summarizing and judiciously commenting on the changing attitudes shown by people ranging from Buddhists to Nazis, from the ancient Greeks to today's Earth Firsters and ecotopians .... A genuine treat.
--Edward Cornish, President, World Future Society
A fine book...it reaches broadly and deeply into our cultural roots, bringing religion, theology, popular culture, science, folklore, natural history and much else into the discussion...an excellent source book [and] a valuable reference work, one of those books that belong on the shelf, near at hand, in the collection of any serious student of environmentalism and the history of technology. It will be consulted often.
-- Walter Rosenbaum, University of Florida, author of Environmental Politics and Policy
While all human societies have enlisted technologies to control nature, the last hundred years have witnessed the technological exploitation and destruction of natural resources on an unprecedented scale. As environmental groups and the scientific community sound the alarm about deforestation, global warming and ozone depletion, the obvious question arises: how did we get where we are today? Victor Ferkiss here sets out to answer this central question, emphasizing that we cannot escape from our present environmental predicament unless we understand the ideas which have created it.
Tracing the development of cultural attitudes toward the environment and technology over almost the whole span of human civilization, this book is distinctive both in its comprehensiveness, and in its attempt to place side by side influential thinkers and movements with varied views on these issues.
In this extraordinary book Ferkiss asks the basic questions concerning humans and their relationship to the environment. He traces cultural attitudes towards the environment from early mankind to the present day. This book is distinguished in its comprehensiveness, as well as in its attempt to place influential thinkers and movements with varied views side-by-side.
Review
Cohen breaks new ground by drawing from relatively unstudied sources: the sermons delivered in nineteenth-century synagogues.-Marc Saperstein,Principal, Leo Baeck College
Review
“Naomi Cohens book brings important new evidence to our attention and thus helps us better understand a crucial era in the history of American Judaism and of the American rabbinate.”
-American Jewish Archives Journal,
Review
"Naomi Cohen charts how Jewish clergy negotiated the competing claims of tradition and the novel cultural, political, and religious context of America."-First Things,
Review
"Cohen's discussion is learned and lively, clear and well argued: it brings history back to life through some of its most engaged actors and in their own words."-Rhetorical Review,
Review
“Naomi Cohen’s book brings important new evidence to our attention and thus helps us better understand a crucial era in the history of American Judaism and of the American rabbinate.”
Cohen breaks new ground by drawing from relatively unstudied sources: the sermons delivered in nineteenth-century synagogues. "This book is important for readers of American Jewish history and for anyone who wants to comprehend the thorny interaction between minority and majority religions and cultures in Western modernity." "Naomi Cohen charts how Jewish clergy negotiated the competing claims of tradition and the novel cultural, political, and religious context of America." "Cohen's discussion is learned and lively, clear and well argued: it brings history back to life through some of its most engaged actors and in their own words."
Review
"This book is important for readers of American Jewish history and for anyone who wants to comprehend the thorny interaction between minority and majority religions and cultures in Western modernity."-Choice,
Synopsis
What the Rabbis Said examines a relatively unexplored facet of the rich social history of nineteenth-century American Jews. Based on sources that have heretofore been largely neglected, it traces the sermons and other public statements of rabbis, both Traditionalists and Reformers, on a host of matters that engaged the Jewish community before 1900.
Reminding the reader of the complexities and diversity that characterized the religious congregations in nineteenth-century America, Cohen offers insight into the primary concerns of both the religious leaders and the laityfull acculturation to American society, modernization of the Jewish religious tradition, and insistence on the recognized equality of a non-Christian minority. She also discusses the evolution of denominationalism with the split between Traditionalism and Reform, the threat of antisemitism, the origins of American Zionism, and interreligious dialogue. The book concludes with a chapter on the professionalization of the rabbinate and the legacy bequeathed to the next century. On all those key issues rabbis spoke out individually or in debates with other rabbis. From the evidence presented, the congregational rabbi emerges as a pioneer, the leader of a congregation, as well as spokesman for the Jews in the larger society, forging an independence from his European counterparts, and laboring for the preservation of the Jewish faith and heritage in an unfamiliar environment.
About the Author
Naomi W. Cohen, a retired Professor of History now residing in Jerusalem, has written extensively on American Jewry. The recipient of various prizes for her scholarship, she has twice been awarded the National Jewish Book Award for history. Her most recent books are Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership and The Americanization of Zionism.