Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture [Paperback]

Carolyn Merchant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0415931657 | ISBN-13: 978-0415931656

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her challenging book, environmental historian Merchant (The Death of Nature) attempts to put the current ecological crisis into perspective by examining historical thoughts regarding the loss of Eden and attempts to recover it. One idea is rooted in the scientific revolution of the 17th century: this optimistic scenario asserts that Eden can be regained by re-creating the garden through suburbs, malls and bioengineered food. A more recent idea, embraced by environmentalists, simply states that the earth is in a long decline from Eden in its pristine state. Some colonists thought the New World was already an Eden. Others saw it as a land that needed to be converted into an Eden so its natural resources could be harvested as profitable commodities. In the latter scenario, the fallen Adam redeems himself by becoming the heroic American Adam who transforms nature a female object, or Eve into a fruitful garden. Merchant points out the flaws in many of these Garden of Eden narratives: the first scenario, for example, leads to a totally artificial world and ignores the fact that we can't dominate nature because it is chaotic, complex and unpredictable. Merchant proposes a new narrative in which men, women and the earth work together, giving the needs of nature equal weight with the needs of humans. Unfortunately, her proposals for cooperation between corporations, communities, government agencies and environmental groups are not original. Coming after her penetrating treatment of the historical narratives, this part of the book is disappointing. Yet she covers a wealth of information and sheds light on the thinking of generations of scientists, philosophers and environmentalists. Illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

[Merchant] covers a wealth of information and sheds light on the thinking of generations of scientists, philosophers, and environmentalists. -- Publishers Weekly
Fascinating and enjoyable reading. Merchant provides a richly documented analysis of the shifting rationales for dominating, degrading and reinventing the natural world. -- Devra Davis, author of When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution
In an age dominated by violence, conflict, disharmony, and terror, Reinventing Eden offers an alternative to 'either you're with us or you're our enemy' logic and could help create harmony out of disharmony, a peaceful order out of violent chaos. A timely book for our troubled times and troubled thinking. -- Vandana Shiva, author of Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit
Intelligent, passionate, clearly written (and thus excellent for teaching) and challenging, they make powerful contributions to understanding both The Mess We're In and the ways in which we've thought about that mess. Carolyn Merchant is one of the world's most important environmental thinkers...This is a visionary book of intellectual history and ethics. -- Roger S. Gottlieb, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Merchant leads the reader away from the linear desert of the Enlightenment into the lush narrative complexity of an ecological Promised Land, where chaos theory ensures that humans will be partners with Nature. -- Technology and Culture
Carolyn Merchant has made another important contribution to our understanding of Western civilization and American culture...an amply researched, well written, closely reasoned study that belongs on the shelf of every Americanist
. -- Paul W. Rea, St. Mary's College of California, SLE
It remains a very useful introduction to this interdisciplinary, critical practice that encourages visual literacy. -- Angela Dietz, Saint Louis University

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (July 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415931657
• ISBN-13: 978-0415931656
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #804,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No Resolution, August 31, 2010

By 

Tommy Turpolene (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (Paperback)

This book is an exposition of two contrasting forms of reclaiming Eden, one through restoring Nature, the other through creating a technological Eden. I agree with Amazon's review from Publishers Weekly. The final chapter is flawed, but to see why, we need to go back to Merchant's other work, one that leads to this one: The Death of Nature. Here she shows the history of the transformation of the European view of Nature from organic to mechanistic. Her view in both of these books is predominantly mechanistic. This is because that a partnership ethic is mechanistic rather than holistic. You cannot have a partnership between a part and the whole. The farthest one can go in that direction is, perhaps, to be a "team player". This book is better for those who are following Merchant's work than as general reading. Merchant has a generally linear view of history with "infinite" possibilities. This leads to a much more superficial narrative than in The Death of Nature.

7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The search of Eden has led to an erosion of nature, June 12, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (Hardcover)

The "Garden Of Eden" was a paradise lost, and mankind has spent centuries searching for it. Reinventing Eden reveals how the image and myth of Eden has actually led to further degradation of the planet, revealing its origins, its influence on political and social thought, and related issues concerning man and nature. Human manipulation of the environment in search of Eden has led to an erosion of nature: Reinventing Eden documents exactly how.

0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Little Radical for My Taste, December 11, 2008

By 

Sean Morris - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture (Paperback)

This book is a book that will be appreciated by ecologists and environmentalists alike but likely denounced by everyone else.

The book implies that ever since man was expelled from Eden, it has been trying to regain Eden through a series of processes, none of which have worked. As you can tell from that sentence, this book is a huge pile of crap for anyone that does not believe in the creation story. It is this point that really made the book less acceptable in my mind. Her basic assumption, that we are all striving to recreate Eden, is also a very extreme stretch. I severely doubt if the Buddhists could give a crap about mankind remaking a new Eden. I know it's not something I think about when planting trees or going to work. However, if you can accept her radical assumption, this book may be for you.

Nevertheless Merchant does have arguments that are very logical. The history of man's changing views towards nature holds a lot of water. In addition, her ideas on environmental partnership are very reasonable and may give us insight into what future practices may save this earth.

Unfortunately for me, that is where my love of this book dies. After reading a few chapters, I just got annoyed. Her chapters follow no linear argument and have no structure that I could find. Some of her arguments are extremely flimsy. At one point in the book, she completely misrepresents the laws of thermodynamics and then proceeds to argue a point from a second law that she states as nearly the opposite of the actual second law. I'm not sure if she ever took any science classes but she needs to do some research next time.

The book also suffers from a great amount of repetition. She repeats things over and over and over. The book should have been a hundred pages shorter. Her constant mention of feminism as it relates to the environment really got on my nerves. That argument does not belong in this book and feels completely out of place. Sometimes her arguments even argue against themselves.

So if you are a radical environmentalist like her, you may just like this book. For those of you that would rather follow a more logical approach to environmentalism (to avoid global warming), you best look elsewhere. As for me, I'm going to focus more on how to fix the earth rather than who's fault it's state is.