The Problem of Nature
Environment and Culture in Historical Perspective
- Editore:
Blackwell Publishers
- Collana:
- New Perspectives On The Past
- EAN:
9780631190219
- ISBN:
063119021X
- Pagine:
- 208
- Formato:
- Paperback
- Lingua:
- Inglese
Descrizione The Problem of Nature
This book considers how nature - in both its biological and environmental manifestations - has been invoked as a dynamic force in human history. It shows how historians, philosophers, geographers, anthropologists and scientists have used ideas of nature to explain the evolution of cultures, to understand cultural difference, and to justify or condemn colonization, slavery and racial superiority. It examines the central part that ideas of environmental and biological determinism have played in theory, and describes how these ideas have served in different ways at different times as instruments of authority, identity and defiance. The book shows how powerful and problematic the invocation of nature can be. The Problem of Nature covers a whole cycle of environmental history and its interpretation, from the Black Death in the fourteenth century, the first European voyages of discovery and the opening of the American frontier through to the imperialism of the nineteenth century and the example of India under colonial rule. David Arnold shows how both the natural environment and ideas about nature have changed radically over the last five centuries.
