The Story of Nature: A Human History

In this erudite inquiry, Mynott (Birds in the Ancient World), the former chief executive of Cambridge University Press, probes humanity’s relationship with nature throughout history. He argues that Ice Age art depicting human-animal hybrids (one 40,000-year-old ivory sculpture called the Lion Man shows a human body with a now extinct cave lion’s head) indicate that prehistoric humans saw themselves as part of nature, merely “one animal among others.” That changed during the agricultural revolution around 9,500 BCE, Mynott contends, suggesting that as humans began to farm and keep livestock, they developed notions of “domestic” and “wild” and came to view themselves as outside the latter. The scientific revolution inspired hopes of dominating the natural world through an increasingly sophisticated understanding of its mechanisms, with French philosopher René Descartes believing that Newton’s laws of physics would enable humans to become the “lords and masters of nature.” Elsewhere, Mynott discusses how European colonizers’ encounters with the vast wildernesses of North America sparked contradictory impulses toward conservation and development (Henry David Thoreau touted the benefits of “half cultivated” land), and how the increasing concentration of global populations in urban areas has alienated many people from nature. Mynott’s ambitious undertaking pays off, shedding light on thousands of years of human history by striking a finely calibrated balance of big-picture analysis and specific examples. As sweeping as it is edifying, this impresses. Photos. Agent: Caroline Dawnay, United Agents. (Oct.)