What Does It Mean to Be Human?: Reverence for Life Reaffirmed by Responses from Around the World

by Frederick Franck (Editor), Janis Roze

In an inspirational act of faith and hope, nearly one hundred contributors--social activists, thinkers, artists and spiritual leaders--reflect with poignant candor on our shared human condition and attempt to define a core set of human values in our rapidly changing socity.

Contributors
* The Dalai Lama
* Wilma Mankiller
* Oscar Arias
* Jimmy Carter
* Cornel West
* Jack Miles
* Mother Teresa
* Nancy Willard
* Elie Wiesel
* James Earl Jones
* Joan Chittister
* Mary Evelyn Tucker
* Vaclav Havel
* Archbishop Desmund Tutu

What Does It Mean To Be Human? is a vital meditation on the endless possibilities of our humanity.

Genres: Philosophy, Anthropology

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Jeremiah]

This book was a good eye opener of some different ways to view humanitarian issues. Out of all the short stories in this book, i would say this book was highly thought over and is useful in certain ways. I feel little informed of the humanitarian issues by reading some of theses stories, but some of them were a lot more direct on the topic. Many of these stories point out how others are being in-humane and in some are unclear. I personally didn't enjoy this book as much as i thought i would. in may cases i found it to be boring to read.

[Lauren]

I am learning that people are good and bad by nature. It's just that it is easier to be bad so naturally, people are mostly bad. We have a nature to want to be better than we are, but we are lazy. Sometimes, the thirst to be better overrides our laziness and we become more than just human.