The Story of Nature

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BOOK DESCRIPTION

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Nature has long been the source of human curiosity and wonderment and the inspiration for some of our deepest creative impulses, but we now seem to be witnessing its rapid impoverishment, or even destruction, in much of our world.

This is a book about the story of nature – past, present and future.  What is ‘nature’? Are we a part of it? Why does it matter to us? Should we think of ourselves as observers, participants, managers, beneficiaries or custodians?

Jeremy Mynott looks at the different ways in which humankind has responded to these questions over the centuries. He tells the story with a light touch and illustrates it with a rich range of quotations, anecdotes, images and examples.  Key topics include: the animal world of the prehistoric cave-painters; the domestication of wildlife (and humans) in the agricultural revolution; the first written speculations about nature by the ancient Greeks; the progressive human domination of the natural world, sanctioned by medieval religious beliefs and accelerated by the scientific revolution; the reaction of the Romantic movement; the growth of natural history; and the North American experience of wilderness. He shows how these different historical experiences play out in current political debates over the conservation, control and value of nature.  And he speculates how our ideas about nature might change again in future scenarios defined by climate change, urbanisation and AI.   

We are currently living through a ‘nature crisis’, in which David Attenborough has warned that ‘the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon’. The stakes could scarcely be higher. The book ends by exploring why such losses matter and how the human faculty of wonder can play a restorative role in revealing what nature ultimately means to us.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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The Story of Nature

List of illustrations
Preface

• Introduction: the meanings of nature
• When we were Nature: the world of the cave-painters
• Taming Nature: domestication and the agricultural revolution
• The Invention of Nature: classical conceptions
• The Books of God and of Nature: medieval readings
• Naming Nature: natural history and science
• Rationalists and Romantics
• Wilderness: the North American experience
• Conservation: nature and the environment
• Choices
• Future Nature
• Epilogue: loss, wonder and meaning

Endnotes
Index
Acknowledgements and credits

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REVIEWS

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‘Totally captivating, wonderfully readable – a glorious tour de force, celebrating everything that nature means to us, exploring why it matters, and setting out what we might yet do to restore and protect it. Not just a beautiful elegy but an urgent call to action.’
Caroline Lucas

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‘Mynott shows that we are part of nature and our potency in relation to it imposes an obligation on us. Told with an extraordinary brightness, clarity and sense of authority, this book is a marvel.’
Adam Nicolson

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‘Mynott is one of our most thoughtful and intelligent nature writers. In this wide-ranging and fascinating book, he tries to answer a deceptively simple question: “what is nature and why does it matter?”’
Stephen Moss

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‘Absorbing, erudite and infused with the latest scholarship…Mynott puts his stamp on the rich and complex but oft-told story of the meanings of nature in the western world.’
Peter Coates

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‘The vast erudition and the clarity of Mynott’s writing will make The Story of Nature not only an important resource for scholars but also an ideal textbook for many courses.’
Boria Sax

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