TY  - BOOK
AU  - Arnold, David 
TI  - The problem of nature: environment and culture in historical perspective
SN  - 9780631190219
U1  - 304.209 ARN/P 
PY  - 1996///
CY  - United kingdom -- 
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell -- 
KW  - Environmental sciences
KW  - Environmental sciences History
KW  - Environmental sciences Philosophy
KW  - Natural history
KW  - Natural sciences
N1  - Foreword. 

1. Introduction. 

2. The Place of Nature. 

3. Reappraising Nature. 

4. Environment as Catastrophe. 

5. Crossing Biological Boundaries. 

6. The Ecological Frontier. 

7. The Environmental Revolution. 

8. Inventing Tropicality. 

9. Colonizing Nature. 

Conclusion. 

Guide to Further Reading. 

Index

N2  - 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
ER  -