In Praise of the Earth

A Journey into the Garden

Byung-Chul Han, Daniel Steuer

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Hardback

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English

Polity Press
22 November 2025

Philosophy; Popular philosophy; Gardening; The natural world, country life & pets

The earth is not a dead, mute landscape but an eloquent, living being. Sometimes it just takes a spade, a packet of seeds, and a pair of sturdy boots to realize it. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han spent three springs, summers, autumns, and winters in his secret garden in Berlin, devoting himself to daily gardening in all weathers. For Han, gardening is a form of silent meditation, a lingering in stillness. It gives you a different sense of time. Every plant has its own time that is specific to it, and the garden is a space in which these multiple temporalities overlap and cut across one another. The longer he worked in the garden, the more respect he developed for the earth and for its enchanting beauty.

Gardening taught him what care for others means. Each organism has its own consciousness of time passing; each organism lives in its own micro-universe. Step by step, Han receded from himself and the world, moving closer and closer to an exuberant, divine nature which we are increasingly in danger of losing.

Through this rich meditation on plants, soil, gardening, and time, Han unfolds a way of relating to and tending the earth that is in sharp contrast to the brutal, incessant exploitation of our planet that we see all around us today.

By: Byung-Chul Han
Translated by: Daniel Steuer
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 208mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 318g
ISBN: 9781509567898
ISBN 10: 1509567895
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 22 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Byung-Chul Han is the author of more than twenty books including The Burnout Society, Saving Beauty and The Spirit of Hope.

Reviews for In Praise of the Earth: A Journey into the Garden

""This is a book of exquisite beauty filled with the scents and colours of flowers and quiet changing of seasons in the author's Berlin garden. But more than that, it is a book of profound wisdom, a calm and deeply welcome antidote to the harshness of our troubled world."" Esther Woolfson, author of and Corvus ""Steeped in German philosophy and high culture, Han's reflections... will yield for patient readers subtle and lovely insights... This poetic volume will nourish gardeners and nature lovers."" Publishers Weekly