The Death of Nature; Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant (2nd edition, 1990)

How the scientific revolution sanctioned the exploitation of nature, commercial expansion, and the subjugation of women.

"Women and nature have an age-old association--an affiliation that has persisted throughout culture, language, and history. Their ancient interconnections have been dramatized by the simultaneity of two recent social movements--women's liberation, symbolized in its controversial infancy by Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique (1963), and the ecology movement, which built up during the 1960s and finally captured national attention on Earth Day, 1970. Common to both is an egalitarian perspective." (From the Preface)

• "No reader will emerge from confrontation with this book without having rethought the meanings of science, its historical origins, and its role in today's world." -Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University
• "Brilliantly conceived and richly researched." -Susan Griffin, author of Woman and Nature
  
• "Enormously disquieting. . . similar to . . . reading Silent Spring. As Carson's (1962) book revealed the invisible (toxins), The Death of Nature brought the concealed into the domain of consciousness."- Max Oelschlaeger, University of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff
• "What is the influence of The Death of Nature? It is, simply, enormous! [It is] unprecedented [in] the ways in which the feminization of nature and the naturalization of women are linked historically." -Karen Warren, Macalester College
  
• "As many readers as one asks, one is bound to hear as many celebrations." "The first [book] to provide a sustained analysis of the sexual politics embedded in the language . . . of modern science." -Robyn Eckersley, Monash University, Melbourne

Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture by Carolyn Merchant, 2003.

Reinventing Eden traces the Garden of Eden myth from the Mesopotamian regions where agriculture--and the creation myth--first began, through the Greek and Roman empires, the Enlightenment, and the modern capitalist world. Time and again, human manipulation of the environment is our downfall: Eden is achieved by fencing off pristine beauty in national parks and wildlife preserves, while leaving the majority of the Earth in ruins.

• "A sparkling, wide-ranging meditation on Western Civilization's relationship to nature." -Londa Schiebinger, author of Has Feminism Changed Science?
  
  
• "Reinventing Eden is fascinating, extensively researched, and historically comprehensive. Merchant's vision for a partnership ethic...is brilliant." -Karen Warren, editor of Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, and Nature
  
  
• "In an age dominated by violence, conflict, disharmony, and terror, Reinventing Eden offers an alternative to 'either you're with us or you're against us or you're our enemy' logic and could help create harmony our of violent chaos. A timely book for our troubled times and troubled thinking." -Vandana Shiva, author of Water Wars: Privitization, Pollution, and Profit
  
  
• "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

Columbia Guide to American Environmental History by Carolyn Merchant, 2002.

How have Americans living at particular times and places used and transformed their environment? How have political systems dealt with conflicts over resources and conservation? The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History is the only major reference work to explore critical themes and debates within the burgeoning field of environmental history.

• "An indispensable tool for surveying one of the most exciting and innovative new approaches to history that has emerged over the past quarter century. We will be relying on it for years to come." -William Cronon, University of Wisconsin
  
  
• "Carolyn Merchant has marshaled her formidable grasp of American environmental history and her dedication to serving the profession to produce a superb handbook that will make burgeoning developments in the field readily accessible to a new generation of students, teachers, and scholars." Susan Flader, Professor of History, University of Missouri--Columbia
  
  
• "Succinct yet comprehensive, this is a splendid introduction to a vibrant new field of history, its key ideas, its fresh approaches to the past, its impressive achievements." -Donald Worster, University of Kansas
  

Ecological Revolutions : Nature, Gender, and Science in New England by Carolyn Merchant, 1989.

Carolyn Merchant explores the stages of ecological transformation that took place in New England as European settlers took control of the land. She brings to light the dense network of links between the human realm of economic regimes, social structure, and gender relations, as they are conditioned by a dominant worldview, and the ecological realm of plant and animal life. Thus we see how integration of the Indians with their natural world was shattered by Europeans who engaged in exhaustive methods of hunting, trapping, and logging for the market and in widespread subsistence farming.

The resulting "colonial ecological revolution" was to hold sway until roughly the time of American independence, when the onset of industrialization and increasing urbanization brought about the "capitalist ecological revolution;" By the late nineteenth century, Merchant argues, New England had become a society that viewed the whole ecosphere as an arena for human domination.

• "A highly readable, landmark book." -Earth Ethics
• "An impressive, strong, and extraordinarily well documented case for the adoption of an ecocentric relationship to the environment." -Agriculture and Human Values
• "Ecological Revolutions is thoroughly recommended to those who want to clarify their own visioning of the present via a re-visioning of the past." -Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Earthcare : Women and the Environment by Carolyn Merchant, 1996.

Written by one of the leading thinkers in environmentalism, Earthcare is an inspiring collection of work on feminism and the environment. In her latest innovative contribution to this lively field, Carolyn Merchant looks at age-old historical associations of women with nature, beginning with Eve and continuing to environmental activists of today. She also discusses women's commitment to environmental conservation, and the problematic assumptions of women as caregivers and men as the dominators fo nature.

Earthcare challenges humanity to revise the ways the Western world has produced, reproduced, and conceptualized its past relations with nature, and suggests a new partnership ethic of environmentalism which men and women alike can embrace. This book will appeal to all those who wish to move toward a cooperative approach to creating a habitable, sustainable world.

• "Carolyn Merchant . . . is a leading ecofeminist thinker. . . . She challenges humankind to rethink the way the Western world has conceptualized its relationship with nature." -Environmental Law
• "Written by one of the most brilliant thinkers in environmentalism, Earthcare is a rich collection of essays on feminism and the environment." -Ethics and the Environment

Ecology (Key Concepts in Critical Theory) by Carolyn Merchant (Editor), 2nd Edition, 2008.

Essays by David Bohm, Herman Daly, Fritof Capra, James Lovelock, Vandana Shiva, Winona LaDuke, Ilya Prigogine, and others.

As we survey the effects of modernism-environmental destruction, the net consumption of irreplaceable natural resources, the ever-widening gulf between first and third worlds-we are forced to grapple with the consequences of the domination of nature with human beings.

The second edition retains many of the most provocative selections from the first edition, while the new, updated pieces explore contemporary matters in ecology and environmental philosophy; the disastrous consequences of globalization; the contradictions between indigenous peoples and conservation organizations; the path of ecofeminism from its roots to its current stance on gender issues and the environment; and an engaging look at the history of environmental movement and their controversies.

• "Congratulations. You have done a marvelous job! Your broad concept of critical theory is helpful." -Arne Naess, Founder of Deep Ecology.

Green Versus Gold : Sources in California's Environmental History by Carolyn Merchant (Editor), 1998. (softcover)

"Green Versus Gold" provides a compelling look at California's environmental history from its Native American past to conflicts and movements of recent decades. Carolyn Merchant has brought together primary sources and interpretive essays to create a comprehensive picture of the history of ecological and human interactions.

• "Lively new collection. . . . Shows how universal California's lessons are." -High Country News
• "A magnificent job in organizing primary materials. . . . An entertaining vade mecum for travelers, informative for students and policy makers." -Landscape Architecture.
• "A guide to the complex maze of California's environmental past and present. . . . Succeeds in its breadth and its accessibility." -Western Historical Quarterly

Radical Ecology : The Search for a Livable World (Revolutionary Thought/Radical Movements) by Carolyn Merchant, 2005, Second Edition.

Radical Ecology responds to the profound awareness of environmental crisis which prevails in the closing decade of the twentieth century. In this provocative and readable study, Carolyn Merchant examines the major philosophical, ethical, scientific, and economic roots for environmental problems and examines the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet.

• "a lucid, lively, and well-balanced account . . . should be required reading for anyone interested in environmental issues. . . Useful to both novices and the knowledgeable--and practictioners as well." -Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
• "lucid, well documented, very readable. . . reflects a generosity of spirit." -Alternatives

Major Problems in American Environmental History Documents and Essays Edited by Carolyn Merchant, 2005. Second Edition.

Designed to encourage critical thinking about history, the Major Problems in American History Series introduces students to both primary sources and analytical essays on important topics in U.S. History. Each volume presents a carefully selected group of readings in an organization that asks students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians and others, and draw their own conclusions.

The second edition retains many of the most popular documents and essays from the first edition, while introducing new topics and new scholarship in this rapidly expanding field. New material is included on water, energy, urbanization, the automobile, environmental health, suburbanization, population growth, environmental justice, and globalization.

• "Extraordinary scope . . . variety [and] freshness in the selections. Teachers will find everything they need in a reader here. . . selection(s) from a well-known author, or something completely new." -Environmental History Review.

American Environmental History: An Introduction. by Carolyn Merchant, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) Second edition of The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History.

American Environmental History addresses contentious issues such as the preservation of the wilderness, the expulsion of native peoples from national parks, and population growth, and considers the formative forces of gender, race, and class. Entries address a range of topics, from the impact of rice cultivation, slavery, and the growth of the automobile suburb to the effects of the Russian sea otter trade, Columbia River salmon fisheries, the environmental justice movement, and globalization.

• "Merchant takes a most useful approach to environmental scholarship by encapsulating a daunting range of factual information and critical information into this practical volume. . . . one of the best books of its kind." History

• "An impressive introduction to environmental history. . . . Merchant has succeeded in producing an accessible first stip handbook that will be relied on for many years." Environmental Practice

• "Merchant has been one of the most important scholars building the field of environmental history. Her excellent guide will be of use to new students in environmental history and to established scholars coming into the field from other areas." John H. Perkins, The Quarterly Review of Biology