Everybody’s Story is a detailed, if fairly obvious, synthesis of much current social and environmental thinking. Rue argues that story is the deepest human motivator, and, since the environmental crisis confronts every human alive, what is needed is a story that speaks for and to all people. After laying out the conditions which have led to this crisis, he concludes that cultures must "modify key symbols to redirect emotional responses" (18). His thesis throughout the book is that the new story – or perhaps stories, he allows – must be consistent with evolutionary cosmology and ecocentric morality. Rue views the Axial traditions (including Buddhism, Upanishadic Hinduism, Hebrew Prophets, and classical Greek philosophy) as "caricatures of reality". They are in a state of declining influence, and do not possess a story compelling enough to command a universal audience – at least insofar as they emphasize dualism and individual salvation. Evolutionary cosmology, Rue contends, "is more like the real thing" (49). The book then moves into three lengthy chapters on the organization of matter, life, and consciousness. Turgid and at times repetitive, these chapters do little to draw the reader into a compelling epic. Phrases like "energy is rendered useless by its informed use in living systems", or "having performed its duty [through sexuality] the body becomes redundant" seem to contradict basic human experience of, respectively, composting or marriage (79). Rue goes to great lengths to show that living systems demonstrate care, and the thing they most care for is life. The book’s laborious pace is rescued, to an extent, by an epilogue which returns to the concept of story. Rue suggests that there will be theistic and nontheistic stories will emerge. He perceptively lays out the challenge to Axial traditions, namely, the imperative to change without losing distinction and character. He acknowledges that the new story images have not yet arrived, while expressing confidence that they are inevitable: "Earth Day, for example, may eventually acquire all the ritualized pomp and ceremony of Easter". This book is intended primarily for adult audiences, excepting perhaps an advanced section of high school seniors. The book will be troubling for some readers in its frank assessment that many religious traditions are intellectually implausible and morally irrelevant – and therefore dying. The book may be most useful for those new to the Universe Story/New Cosmology movement, though there are better narrations of that story elsewhere. The book’s Epilogue is perhaps its most useful contribution to a secondary school teacher. review ©2003 by Eric Mayer and RSiSS Westtown School