The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation

Journalist/environmentalist McKibben ( The End of Nature ) here performs, as a challenge to current thinking about the environmental crisis in the West, a provocative reading of the book of Job. Blaming a prevailing consumer capitalism which claims that ``more is better'' and ``economic growth is unquestionably good'' for humankind's neglect of the natural world, McKibben argues that such a worldview also produces a destructive kind of individualism in which humanity locates itself proudly at the center of the universe. Taking Job's encounter with God in the whirlwind as a model, McKibben urges instead an approach to nature that is grounded in joyous celebration of its wonder and beauty as well as in a humbler perception of our place in it. While this book is marred by repetitive writing and its readings of Job are often narrow, it nonetheless offers a powerful statement. (May)