Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture

by Carolyn Merchant

Visionary quests to return to the Garden of Eden have shaped Western Culture. This book traces the idea of rebuilding the primeval garden from its origins to its latest incarnations and offers a bold new way to think about the earth.

Genres: Ecology, Nature, Philosophy, Geography, Grad School, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2003

About the author

Carolyn Merchant is an American ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science most famous for her theory (and book of the same title) on The Death of Nature, whereby she identifies the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century as the period when science began to atomize, objectify, and dissect nature, foretelling its eventual conception as composed of inert atomic particles. Her works are important in the development of environmental history and the history of science. She is Professor emerita of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics at UC Berkeley.

Reviews

[Nicholas Holt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can’t a guy just have a green thumb anymore without getting accused of wanting to create a proverbial paradise, forming capitalism as we know it, and rapidly bringing about the decay of the Earth?

Merchant gives a fierce take on modern Western science and the role religion has played in its inception. Leading figures like Francis Bacon, according to Merchant, have caused us to view the natural world as something to dominate in order to wrest its secrets free from its grasp. The desire to control nature was fuelled by a desire to return to the legendary Garden of Eden, but our extractionary practices have really bungled that one up.

[Athena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Merchant takes on the entirety of Western Culture in her effort to consider how we think about Nature. This tour de force has opened my own reading of other texts, including advertising, in a new way.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merchant argues that nature, particularly within the New World, can be perceived as a metaphor for both the Garden of Eden and Eve herself from the Christian creation story while Europeans and American settlers can be viewed as Adam tending to the land. She uses various historical examples to showcase how people have connected nature and women over the years, especially through the use of the terms "virgin," "vixen," and "mother."

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

Read this for class…interesting topic.