The Problem of Nature
Environment and Culture in Historical Perspective

David Arnold (Author)

9780631190219, Wiley

Paperback / softback, published 23 August 1996

208 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.6 cm, 0.312 kg

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.

Foreword.

1. Introduction.

Subject Areas: History [HB]