Nature and society in historical context

In general terms, one way of describing the world we live in is to say that it is made up of nature and society, and that human beings belong to both. A distinguished international team aims to contribute - through selective, interdisciplinary studies - to a much-needed but currently scant debate over the reciprocal links between perceptions of nature and perceptions of society from the ancient Greek kosmos to late twentieth-century 'ecology'. Individual essays and the general conclusions of the volume are important not only for our understanding of the evolution of knowledge of nature and of society but also for an awareness of the types of truth and perception produced in the process.