To Uphold the World: A Call for a new Global Ethic from Ancient India (Paperback)
Description
What two great figures of ancient India can tell us about our contemporary economic and social crises In 1991, Bruce Rich traveled to Orissa and gazed upon the rock edicts erected by the emperor Ashoka over 2,200 years ago. Intrigued by the stone inscriptions that declared religious tolerance, conservation, nonviolence, protection of all species, and human rights, Rich was drawn into Ashoka’s world. Ashoka was a powerful conqueror who converted to Buddhism on the heels of a bloody war, yet his empire rested on a political system that saw the accumulation of wealth as society’s overarching goal. This system was perfected by one of history’s greatest political geniuses—Kautilya, a statesman who wrote the world’s first treatise on economics. Already widely praised in India, in this updated U.S. edition, Rich distills the timely messages of Ashoka and Kautilya while reflecting on other thinkers from across the ages—from Aristotle and Adam Smith to George Soros. With this powerful critique of the current wave of globalization, Rich urgently calls for a new global ethic.
About the Author
Bruce Rich is Washington DC based attorney who has served as senior counsel on international finance and development issues for major environmental organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Rich has published extensively in environmental and policy journals, as well as in newspapers and magazines such as The Financial Times, The Nation and The Ecologist. He is the author of Mortgaging the Earth, a widely acclaimed critique of the World Bank and reflection on the philosophical and historical evolution of the project of economic development in the West. He has been awarded the United Nations Environment Program 'Global 500 Award,' the highest environmental prize of the United Nations, in 1988, and also won the World Hunger Media Award in that year for the best periodical piece on development issues.
Praise for To Uphold the World: A Call for a new Global Ethic from Ancient India…
“The reader is drawn powerfully into a long-gone world . . . with ingenious political analysis . . . [It’s] a highly readable book.”—Amartya Sen “It is my hope and prayer that readers today may be inspired by this tale.”—His Holiness the Dalai Lama
