During his deployment during the Persian Gulf War, US artillery officer Phillip Thompson kept a notebook with him at all times, writing down everything he could, drawing maps, explaining his emotions and venting his anger. Those notebooks evolved into this book.

We are becoming a nation of superficial and distracted consumers of instant messages and images, a state of being which does not aid engagement in religious and other deep commitments that require a sustained level of reflection and contemplation.
In his thought-provoking work, Phillip M. Thompson analyses the shadow elements of technology - nuclear armaments, the bio-engineering of humans, and the distancing of humanity from the natural world - through the fascinating insights of the spiritual writer and monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968). Merton's work offers an important critique and...