MAN AND THE NATURAL WORLD: A History of the Modern Sensibility

by Keith Thomas ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 1983

The crisis of anthropocentrism in early modern England: a rich, engrossing, massively documented study. In tracing the factors that led thoughtful Englishmen to question and ultimately reject the notion that everything was created ""principally for the benefit and pleasure of man"" (Richard Bentley), Thomas doesn't so much rehearse a logical process or chronicle a well-defined movement as illustrate a complex ""revolution in perception."" The story is in many ways familiar: the spread of urbanization, the subjugation and destruction of the environment (making nature less of a threat and more an object of nostalgia), advances in biology (seeing plants and animals as independent entities, not as functions of human needs), the burgeoning popularity of gardening and pet-keeping, heightened moral and aesthetic sensitivity--these and other psychosocial developments helped foster the typical contemporary attitude toward nature that fuses a sense of alienation with guilt, longing, and quasi-religious awe. Thomas relates all this in graphic, sometimes ironic detail (the 5,000 calves slaughtered for the vellum of 30 Gutenberg bibles, the poet Cowper killing a viper to protect his kittens, the phenomenal increase in cultivated plants, from ca. 200 in 1500 to 18,000 in 1839); but he does more. He shows how remarkably far down the roots of ""the modern sensibility"" go (one 17th-century authority bade his readers ""discourse with fruit trees""). He upsets the Lynn White thesis by establishing the large, if paradoxical, contribution to the ecological mentality of Christian theology in general and Protestant ministers in particular. And he sketches out countless other topics (the decline of cock-fighting, the growth of vegetarianism, etc.) on an immense and variegated cultural canvas. There is much to be said against Thomas' conclusion that conservation areas are like toys for adults, ""fantasies which enshrine the values by which society as a whole cannot afford to live""; but generally his judgments are restrained and fair. A major scholarly achievement, accessible to the general reader and of prime interest to nature enthusiasts.

Pub Date: May 16, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION