The third book in Morris Berman's much acclaimed trilogy on the evolution of human consciousness, Wandering God continues his earlier work which garnered such praise as "solid lessons in the history of ideas" (Kirkus Reviews), "filled with piquant details" (Common Boundary), "an informative synthesis and a remarkably friendly, good-natured jeremiad" (The Village Voice). Here, in a remarkable discussion of our hunter-gatherer ancestry and the "paradoxical" mode of perception that it involved, Berman shows how a sense of alertness, or secular/sacred immediacy, subsequently got buried by the rise of sedentary civilization, religion, and vertical power relationships.

In an integrated tour de force, Wandering God explores the meaning of Paleolithic art, the origins of social inequality, the nature of cross-cultural child rearing, the relationship between women and agriculture, and the world view of present-day nomadic peoples, as well as the emergence of "paradoxical" consciousness in the philosophical writings of the twentieth century.

The Reenchantment of the World is a perceptive study of our scientific consciousness and a cogent and forceful challenge to its supremacy. Focusing on the rise of the mechanistic idea that we can know the natural world only by distancing ourselves from it, Berman shows how science acquired its controlling position in the consciousness of the West. He analyzes the holistic, animistic tradition—destroyed in the wake of Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—which viewed man as a participant in the cosmos, not as an isolated observer. Arguing that the holistic world view must be revived in some credible form before we destroy our society and our environment, he explores the possibilities for a consciousness appropriate to the modern era. Ecological rather than animistic, this new world view would be grounded in the real and intimate connection between man and nature.

Who among us has never wondered whether our lives could be completely different? What exactly could we change, if we could? From the poetry of Robert Frost to the blockbuster cinema of "Back to the Future," the notion of "what if?" holds an almost obsessive fascination over us. Are we shaped by fate, or by conscious choice? "Destiny" is a series of three interrelated novellas that revolve around a single theme: Is it possible, as an act of will, for an individual to change what appears to be his or her fate? Can one deliberately modify the ingrained patterns of one's life, and thereby alter its course? In the case of each of these tales, the central character undertakes to do this, and in each case the outcome is radically different. The path of the protagonist of the first story, "La Vita Nuova," is an occult one, involving meditation, parallel universes, time travel, and a training in Sufi out-of-body experiences. Jason Green, a rather timid librarian in New York City, finally gets the life he wanted, but it comes with a catch, one he cannot seem to resolve. In the second story, "The Observer," Irene Davis is a talented artist who has spent her life keeping everyone at a distance. She wakes up on her fortieth birthday to discover that she is single, friendless, and devoid of any real meaning in her life. In the course of working with a therapist she begins to explore the possibilities for turning this around. The final story, "The Seven Deadly Sins," revolves around the life of a high school social science teacher, George Crystal, who unexpectedly writes a best-seller and subsequently retires to a small village in England. From this vantage point, he decides to "purify" his life by working through the Seven Deadly Sins--Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust--one by one. After some initial success, the project starts to go awry, and then takes an unexpected turn when George falls in love with another American expatriate. The fact that there are three separate, and fundamentally different, answers to the central question of the book finally lends it a philosophical or existential dimension, one that propels the reader to reflect on his or her own destiny, and what the possibilities are for having the life we really want.

A Question of Values is Morris Berman's seventh book of cultural history and social criticism, and his first book of essays, which were written during 2007-10. Timely and uncompromising, they range across four principal topics: American culture and politics; the human existential condition; a close look at the nature of "progress"; and some thoughts on where Western civilization, in general, is headed. These articles pull no punches regarding our current situation, and represent some of Berman's finest writing to date. He challenges his readers to rethink the accepted mainstream system of values, and argues that in the end, our problems are as ethical in nature as they are political. In the context of a value system that is rapidly turning against us, Berman's message is simple: change or die.