000 01716nam a22002297a 4500
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008 250206b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020 _a9780631190219
041 _aeng
082 _a304.209 ARN/P
100 _aArnold, David
_91539
245 _aThe problem of nature: environment, culture and European expansion
260 _aUnited kingdom --
_bWiley-Blackwell --
_c1996
300 _aviii, 199p.
500 _aForeword. 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.
520 _aThis 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.
650 _aEnvironmental sciences
_911484
650 _aEnvironmental sciences Philosophy
_911486
650 _aNatural history
_911487
650 _aNatural sciences
_98154
942 _cBK