The Social Creation of Nature

One reason for our failure to save the earth argues Neil Evernden is our disagreement about what nature really is-how it works what constitutes a risk to it and even whether we ourselves are part of it. Nature is as much a social entity as a physical one. In addition to the physical resources to be harnessed and transformed it consists of a domain of norms that may be called upon in defense of certain social ideals. In exploring the consequences of conventional understandings of nature The Social Creation of Nature also seeks a way around the limitations of a socially created nature in order to defend what is actually imperiled-wildness in which Thoreau wrote lies hope for the preservation of the world.