A reenchanted world

Western societies spent more than two hundred years industrializing and, in the process, came to see the natural world mainly as a store of materials to be extracted. Stories of woodland spirits and mountain monsters gave way to timber harvesting and open-pit mining, and ceremonial hunts were replaced by the mass slaughter of animals for the meat trade. Max Weber famously argued that the modern world had lost its enchantment, as secularization and rational organization drained nature of its mystery.

Sociologist James William Gibson argues that this loss is now being reversed. He traces a surprisingly wide hunger for a spiritual bond with the natural world across very different groups: environmental activists from Greenpeace, evangelical Christians who promote the idea of caring for creation, and geneticists who describe humans and animals as relatives.

As environmental crises grow more severe, Gibson presents this renewed sense of wonder as a possible source of hope, a reason to believe that people might still change how they treat the planet they share.