Are you a potential Carverphile?

This website exists to make you aware of—and get you excited about!—George Washington Carver and, specifically, Peter D. Burchard’s long-awaited biography Heaven on Earth: the Life and Vision of George Washington Carver. I believe, says Burchard, “that the people who will love this book are we who are concerned about the trouble humanity is in, as life-sustaining topsoil washes away, big agriculture scorches the earth, local economies fall prey to corporate ones, global warming threatens, and racism continues to bear its ugly fangs. Carver’s company,” Burchard says, “will offer them a vacation from problems that seem simply too huge, like a trip to an awe-inspiring national park. His perspective offers a refreshing break from the often-piecemeal attempts to solve systemic problems and counter-productive antagonism of the players."

Carver taught organic farming, a zero-waste economy, environmental education and ecologically conscious religion long before they had names. He looked forward to the end of petroleum and mining interests, the re-emergence of the small farm over big agriculture, and preventive dietary and herbal medicine over risky pharmaceuticals. His life from 1864 to 1943 involved him directly with American slavery, the first land-grant college, monocrop agriculture, Jim Crow, the rise of the chemical industry, and the dismal domestic effects of two world wars. His wisdom and insight are a revelation, and his engaging wit makes him a pleasure to follow as he anticipates also a world where the Golden Rule is the rule and “a religion of hate” has no place.

"My audience" says Burchard, "believes that a critical mass of human consciousness change is necessary to solve global problems, and will find that Carver’s teachings further this change in them. They value spiritual ideas but are not necessarily religious. They lament the harm that rigid, abstract religious tenets have done in separating humanity from nature, and will find in Carver a spiritual worldview that perfectly integrates love and honor of nature. Some of my readers are the black intelligentsia—the segment of the African American population this work has acquainted me with—fascinated with a black man as a figure great in so many unanticipated ways.”