Book details

Publication date: March 2023
Keywords: ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism
Subject(s): PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / General, Philosophy, Environment, History, Social Sciences, Religious Studies, PHILOSOPHY / General, NATURE / General, HISTORY / Europe / General, RELIGION / History, Philosophy and Religion, Economic theory and philosophy, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Environmentalist thought and ideology, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, History, ideology of the West; origins; civilization; instrumental rationality; cities; Stoicism; Socratic ethics; Plato; Confucianism; Buddhism; Zoroastrianism; apocalypticism; millenarianism; utopias; hedonist utilitarianism; consumerism, Philosophy / Environment / Sustainability
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press

Martin M. Tweedale. Martin M. Tweedale holds a BA from Princeton and a PhD from UCLA, where he specialized in medieval and ancient Western philosophy. He has published extensively in these areas as well as metaphysics. Before coming to the University of Alberta, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, UCLA, and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. A resident of Edmonton, he is a life-long supporter of efforts to preserve the natural environment.

"Making Wonderful is a vast, multi-disciplinary analysis of the ideological roots of the prevailing “eco-catastrophe” that locates it in certain dramatic shifts in the climate of ideas in European and European-colonial cultures. Martin M. Tweedale makes a compelling claim for the power of ideology and its cultural imaginary in his account of the roots of the ecological crisis." Jason M. Wirth, Seattle University


"Making Wonderful stands out both for the breadth of historical scholarship and for the masterful manner in which Martin M. Tweedale shows how a plurality of distinct ideas came together to form an ideational whole whose effects far exceed those of its parts." Philip Rose, University of Windsor

Acknowledgments | ix
Preface | xi
Introduction | xvii
1 Human Life before There Were Cities | 1
2 The Trauma of Urban-Dominated Civilization | 19
3 Designers of the Inner Self | 39
4 From Zarathustra to Revolutionary Millennialism | 77
5 Apocalyptic Thought in the Medieval West | 139
6 Reformation and Utopia | 167
7 Secularizing the Millennium | 225
8 The Cult of Science | 277
9 The Vulgarization of the Millennium | 317
Conclusion Unleashing the Western Gesellschaft | 359
Notes | 381
Works Cited | 411
Index | 417
ISBNs: 9781772126242 978-1-77212-624-2 Title: making wonderful ISBNs: 9781772126587 978-1-77212-658-7 Title: making wonderful ISBNs: 9781772126594 978-1-77212-659-4 Title: making wonderful