Flight from Grace

Humans are wearing down the natural world, and birds and other animals are vanishing at an alarming pace, pushing the planet toward what is often called a sixth mass extinction. Rather than mainly measuring the damage, Richard Pope asks why it has come to this and sets out to answer that question through history.

The book follows humanity's regard for birds and the wider natural world from the Stone Age and the Neolithic period through the societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Peru and Greece, and through biblical traditions, down to the traces that survive today. Pope examines Judaeo-Christian and ancient Greek thought to show how a human-centred outlook and a diminished view of nature paved the way for today's ecological crisis.

Illustrated with striking images of cultural objects, many of them little known, the work also discusses art, music, literature and religion at length, exposing a paradox in how people relate to the natural world now. Pope argues that as humanity moved from its Paleolithic origins into modern times, it grew both detached from and disenchanted with nature.

Pope suggests that replacing an animistic understanding of the world with a mechanistic one has led people to deny their own animal nature. He urges readers to consider how humanity's older bond with birds could help reshape the way we relate to the natural world today.