Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western CultureRoutledge, 2013 - 283 Seiten Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western culture from Columbus' voyages to today's tropical island retreats. Few narratives are so powerful - and, as Carolyn Merchant shows, so misguided and destructive - as the dream of recapturing a lost paradise. A sweeping account of these quixotic endeavors by one of America's leading environmentalists, Reinventing Eden traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations in shopping malls, theme parks and gated communities. With eloquence and insight, Merchant shows how the drive to conquer nature and to explore and settle the globe, springs from this utopian pastoral impulse throughout Western history. Time and again, human manipulation of the environment is our downfall: Eden is achieved by fencing off pristine beauty in national parks and wildlife preserves, while leaving the majority of the earth in ruins. Challenging both narratives, Merchant argues that the green veneer of city-park conservation has become a cover for the corruption of the earth and the neglect of its environment. Reinventing Eden is a bold new way to think about the earth that includes green political parties, sustainable development and a partnership between humans and earth that is nothing short of an ecological revolution. |
Inhalt
1 A Garden Planet | 1 |
Part I Genesis of the Recovery Narrative | 9 |
Part II New World Edens | 79 |
Part III New Stories | 159 |
Epilogue | 209 |
Afterword | 211 |
Notes | 217 |
251 | |
271 | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture Carolyn Merchant Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2003 |
Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture Carolyn Merchant Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2013 |
Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture Carolyn Merchant Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2013 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Adam and Eve agriculture Aldo Leopold American animals argues Baird Callicott biblical California Carolyn Merchant chaos chaos theory Christian climate change complex conservation created creation Dante decline depicted desert domination dominion earth earthly ecological Edenic emerging Enlightenment environment environmentalists European Fall fallen female feminist fertile forest fruit Gaia Gaia hypothesis garden Garden of Eden gender Genesis global God’s goddess human Ibid idea Indians irrigation James Lovelock John labor land landscape living Locke mainstream Recovery Narrative male mall mechanistic science medieval modern mother mountains Muir myth natura naturans nature's nonhuman nature Oxford paradise partner partnership ethic pastoral philosophers plants plot polluted predict pristine progress quotation redeemed Reinventing relationship religion restore rivers savage social soil sustainable symbolized theory Thoreau tion Torah transformed trees University Press Val Plumwood virgin Western culture wild wilderness William Cronon woman women York