Uncommon ground : rethinking the human place in nature / William Cronon, editor.

Contributor(s):

Cronon, William

Material type: Text

TextNew York : W.W. Norton & Co., c1996Description: 561 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780393315110 (pbk.)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

363.7 UNC 23 010111

Online resources:

Table of contents

Contents:

Beginnings -- In search of nature / William Cronon -- Paradise Lost and Found -- The trouble with wilderness; or, Getting back to the wrong nature / William Cronon -- Constructing nature: the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted / Anne Whiston Spirn -- Amazonia as Edenic narrative / Candace Slater -- Reinventing Eden: western culture as a recovery narrative / Carolyn Merchant -- At Work and Play -- "Are you an environmentalist or do you work for a living?" : work and nature / Richard White -- Looking for nature at the mall: a field guide to the Nature Company / Jennifer Price -- "Touch the magic" / Susan G. Davis -- Contested Terrains -- Ecological fragmentation in the fifties / Michael G. Barbour -- On the search for a root cause: essentialist tendencies in environmental discourse / Jeffrey C. Ellis -- Whose nature? : the contested moral terrain of ancient forests / James D. Proctor -- Nature as community: the convergence of environment and social justice / Giovanna Di Chiro -- Universal donors in a vampire culture: it's all in the family, biological kinship categories in the twentieth-century United States / Donna J. Haraway -- Common Places -- Reinventing common nature: Yosemite and Mount Rushmore, a meandering tale of a double nature / Kenneth R. Olwig -- Simulated nature and natural simulations: rethinking the relation between the beholder and the world / N. Katherine Hayles -- Toward a philosophy of nature / Robert P. Harrison -- Partings -- Toward a conclusion.

Summary: Nature: the wilderness that environmentalists try to protect from industrial despoliation; the spectacular national parks where people seek refuge from their everyday urban lives; the endangered plants and animals that now need the shelter of science and law to survive; the rain forests, mountains, deserts, oceans, rivers, and lakes we would like to see as unspoiled, unchanging. These conceptions of nature, so familiar and powerful that we take them for granted, are deeply flawed because they too often leave people out of the picture. The original essays in this volume, by leading scholars from many disciplines, examine the problems that flow from a viewpoint that severs human beings and human activities from their place in nature. The essays draw on evidence from many corners of our cultural landscape, from the parks of Frederick Law Olmsted to the cool confines of The Nature Company's stores, from the Amazon rain forest and the Garden of Eden to the virtual world of cyberspace. Together, they point toward new environmental values that affirm a responsible human place in nature. On such a foundation we can meet the challenges of the present and build an environmentalism for the twenty-first century.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore	363.7 UNC 010111 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		010111

Includes bibliographical references (p. 461-476) and index.

Beginnings --
In search of nature / William Cronon --
Paradise Lost and Found --
The trouble with wilderness; or, Getting back to the wrong nature / William Cronon --
Constructing nature: the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted / Anne Whiston Spirn --
Amazonia as Edenic narrative / Candace Slater --
Reinventing Eden: western culture as a recovery narrative / Carolyn Merchant --
At Work and Play --
"Are you an environmentalist or do you work for a living?" : work and nature / Richard White --
Looking for nature at the mall: a field guide to the Nature Company / Jennifer Price --
"Touch the magic" / Susan G. Davis --
Contested Terrains --
Ecological fragmentation in the fifties / Michael G. Barbour --
On the search for a root cause: essentialist tendencies in environmental discourse / Jeffrey C. Ellis --
Whose nature? : the contested moral terrain of ancient forests / James D. Proctor --
Nature as community: the convergence of environment and social justice / Giovanna Di Chiro --
Universal donors in a vampire culture: it's all in the family, biological kinship categories in the twentieth-century United States / Donna J. Haraway --
Common Places --
Reinventing common nature: Yosemite and Mount Rushmore, a meandering tale of a double nature / Kenneth R. Olwig --
Simulated nature and natural simulations: rethinking the relation between the beholder and the world / N. Katherine Hayles --
Toward a philosophy of nature / Robert P. Harrison --
Partings --
Toward a conclusion.

Nature: the wilderness that environmentalists try to protect from industrial despoliation; the spectacular national parks where people seek refuge from their everyday urban lives; the endangered plants and animals that now need the shelter of science and law to survive; the rain forests, mountains, deserts, oceans, rivers, and lakes we would like to see as unspoiled, unchanging. These conceptions of nature, so familiar and powerful that we take them for granted, are deeply flawed because they too often leave people out of the picture. The original essays in this volume, by leading scholars from many disciplines, examine the problems that flow from a viewpoint that severs human beings and human activities from their place in nature. The essays draw on evidence from many corners of our cultural landscape, from the parks of Frederick Law Olmsted to the cool confines of The Nature Company's stores, from the Amazon rain forest and the Garden of Eden to the virtual world of cyberspace. Together, they point toward new environmental values that affirm a responsible human place in nature. On such a foundation we can meet the challenges of the present and build an environmentalism for the twenty-first century.

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