Reveals how the scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changed our view of the earth and argues that the advance of science set back the cause of women

Reveals how the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries changed our view of the earth and argues that the advance of science set back the cause of women (view table of contents)

Responding to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevails in this closing decade of the 20th century. Carolyn Merchant examines the major philosophical, ethical, scientific and economic roots of environmental problems and identifies the ways in which radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life. Laws, regulations and scientific research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore our dwindling resources. The author argues that in order to maintain a liveable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific and spiritual approaches that wil transform human relationships with nature. She analyzes the revolutionary ideas of visionary ecologists, at the cutting edge of social change and assesses their efforts to bring environmental problems to the attention of the public.

As we survey the effects of modernism—environmental destruction, the net consumption of irreplaceable natural resources, the ever-widening gulf between first and third worlds—we are forced to grapple with the consequences of the domination of nature by human beings. The readings gathered here join these issues with critical theory to examine the ongoing struggle to rediscover the nature within human beings and to reconnect it with external nature.Starting with an examination of the use of modernist thought as legitimation for the domination of nature, the collection progresses on a broad front: It examines how first-world economies create third-world dependency; the connections between poverty and population; how basic needs could be fulfilled in a green sustainable economy; the debate among deep, social, and socialist ecologists over the new ecological worldview; ecofeminism and the liberation of both women and nature; environmental justice for minorities and third-world peoples; the need for new spiritual relations between people and nature; and a new postmodern science that offers people a partnership with nature. The conclusion presents the "Principles of Environmental Justice," adopted by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.Each essay stands on its own as a contribution to the ecological debate, but the cumulative effect is clearly to ask how critical theorists, current environmental philosophers, and scientists propose to liberate both human beings and nature.

Green Versus Gold provides a compelling look at California's environmental history from its Native American past to conflicts and movements of recent decades. Carolyn Merchant has brought together primary sources and interpretive essays to create a comprehensive picture of the history of ecological and human interactions.

This revised edition of Carolyn Merchant’s classic Reinventing Eden has been updated with a new foreword and afterword. 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.