Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological IdeasNature's Economy is a wide-ranging investigation of ecology's past. It traces the origins of the concept, discusses the thinkers who have shaped it, and shows how it in turn has shaped the modern perception of our place in nature. The book includes portraits of Linnaeus, Gilbert White, Darwin, Thoreau, and such key twentieth-century ecologists as Rachel Carson, Frederic Clements, Aldo Leopold, James Lovelock, and Eugene Odum. It concludes with a new Part VI, which looks at the directions ecology has taken most recently. |
Contents
Preface | ix |
Two Roads Diverged Ecology in the Eighteenth Century | 1 |
Science in Arcadia | 3 |
The Empire of Reason | 26 |
The Subversive Science Thoreaus Romantic Ecology | 57 |
A Naturalist in Concord | 59 |
Nature Looking into Nature | 77 |
Roots and Branches | 98 |
Clements and the Climax Community | 205 |
Dust Follows the Plow | 221 |
The Moral of a Science Ethics Economics and Ecology | 255 |
The Value of a Varmint | 258 |
Producers and Consumers | 291 |
Declarations of Interdependence | 316 |
The Age of Ecology Science and the Fate of the Earth | 339 |
Healing the Planet | 342 |
The Dismal Science Darwinian Ecology | 113 |
A Fallen World | 115 |
The Education of a Scientist | 130 |
Scrambling for Place | 145 |
The Ascent of Man | 170 |
O Pioneers Ecology on the Frontier | 189 |
Words on a Map | 191 |
Disturbing Nature | 388 |
Notes | 435 |
Glossary of Terms | 471 |
| 474 | |
| 499 | |
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Common terms and phrases
agriculture American animals arcadian argued became become began biological century Charles Darwin civilization Clements climax climax community competition concept Concord conservation coyote creatures culture decades Dust Bowl earth ecological succession ecologists economic economy of nature ecosystem emerged Emerson ence energy environment environmental essay ethic Eugene Odum evolution farmer force forest Frederic Clements Gaia Galápagos Gilbert White grassland human Humboldt Ibid ideal ideas individual interdependence kind land landscape Leopold Linnaean Linnaeus living Lovelock Lyell Malin Malthus man's mechanistic ment million mind modern moral nation natural economy Natural History natural world naturalist nature's Odum organicism organism organismic Paul Sears philosophy Plains plants population prairie predators productivity Rachel Carson Robert MacArthur Romantic scientific scientists Selborne sense social society soil species survival Tansley technological theory Thoreau tion trees ture vegetation whole wildlife William Morton Wheeler wrote