The quest to pinpoint the age of the Earth is nearly as old as humanity itself. For most of history, people trusted mythology or religion to provide the answer, even though nature abounds with clues to the past of the Earth and the stars. In A Natural History of Time, geophysicist Pascal Richet tells the fascinating story of how scientists and philosophers examined those clues and from them built a chronological scale that has made it possible to reconstruct the history of nature itself. Richet begins his story with mythological traditions, which were heavily influenced by the seasons and almost uniformly viewed time cyclically. The linear history promulgated by Judaism, with its story of creation, was an exception, and it was that tradition that drove early Christian attempts to date the Earth. For instance, in 169 CE, the bishop of Antioch, for instance declared that the world had been in existence for “5,698 years and the odd months and days.” Until the mid-eighteenth century, such natural timescales derived from biblical chronologies prevailed, but, Richet demonstrates, with the Scientific Revolution geological and astronomical evidence for much longer timescales began to accumulate. Fossils and the developing science of geology provided compelling evidence for periods of millions and millions of years—a scale that even scientists had difficulty grasping. By the end of the twentieth century, new tools such as radiometric dating had demonstrated that the solar system is four and a half billion years old, and the universe itself about twice that, though controversial questions remain. The quest for time is a story of ingenuity and determination, and like a geologist, Pascal Richet carefully peels back the strata of that history, giving us a chance to marvel at each layer and truly appreciate how far our knowledge—and our planet—have come.

Drawing on cultural, social, and environmental history, as well as the histories of science and medicine, this book shows how, amidst a growing reaction against exotic imports -- whether medieval spices like cinnamon or new American arrivals like chocolate and tobacco -- early modern Europeans began to take inventory of their own "indigenous" natural worlds.

A Natural History of the New World traces the evolution of plant ecosystems, beginning in the Late Cretaceous period and ending in the present, charting their responses to changes in geology and climate.

From the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century Japan saw the creation, development, and apparent disappearance of the field of natural history, or "honzogaku." Federico Marcon traces the changing views of the natural environment that accompanied its development by surveying the ideas and practices deployed by "honzogaku" practitioners and by vividly reconstructing the social forces that affected them. These include a burgeoning publishing industry, increased circulation of ideas and books, the spread of literacy, processes of institutionalization in schools and academies, systems of patronage, and networks of cultural circles, all of which helped to shape the study of nature. In this pioneering social history of knowledge in Japan, Marcon shows how scholars developed a sophisticated discipline that was analogous to European natural history but formed independently. He also argues that when contacts with Western scholars, traders, and diplomats intensified in the nineteenth century, the previously dominant paradigm of "honzogaku "slowly succumbed to modern Western natural science not by suppression and substitution, as was previously thought, but by creative adaptation and transformation.

Explores the development of natural history since the Renaissance and contextualizes current discussions of biodiversity.

Highlights 40 masterworks of illustrated scientific art from the Rare Book Collection of the American Museum of Natural History.

While there is talk of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, old and new challenges bedevil the world – climate change, nutrition, and health poverty being at the top of the list. In seeking solutions to these and other problems which afflict the modern era, it is worthwhile to look into our collective past, to the traditions and knowledges of our ancestors. Such knowledge continues to exist in many parts of the world, though now marginalized by homogenous, Eurocentric ontolology and epistemology. This book presents a compilation of reviews, case studies, and primary research attempting to locate the utility of traditional and Indigenous Knowledges in an increasingly complex world. It assembles chapter authors from across the world to tackle topics ranging from traditional knowledge-based innovations and commercialization, traditional medicine systems as practiced around the world, ethnoveterinary practices, and food innovation to traditional governance and leadership systems, among others. This book is an important resource for policymakers; scholars and researchers of cultural studies, leadership, governance, ethnobotany, anthropology, plant genetic resources and technology innovation; and readers interested in the history of knowledge and culture, as well as cultural activists and political scientists. Features: Unique combination of social science and anthropological aspects with natural science perspectives Includes summaries aimed at policymakers to immediately see what would be relevant to their work Combines case studies illuminating important lessons learned with reviews and primary data Multidisciplinary in the scope of the topics tackled and assemblage of contributors Global footprint with contributions from Africa, Europe, North America, Asia, and the West Indies David R. Katerere, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa Wendy Applequist, William L. Brown Center, Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis, Missouri Oluwaseyi M. Aboyade, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa and Nutritica SA, The Innovation Hub, Pretoria, South Africa Chamunorwa Togo, The Innovation Hub, Pretoria, South Africa

Publisher description

In Modern Nature,Lynn K. Nyhart traces the emergence of a “biological perspective” in late nineteenth-century Germany that emphasized the dynamic relationships among organisms, and between organisms and their environment. Examining this approach to nature in light of Germany’s fraught urbanization and industrialization, as well the opportunities presented by new and reforming institutions, she argues that rapid social change drew attention to the role of social relationships and physical environments in rendering a society—and nature—whole, functional, and healthy. This quintessentially modern view of nature, Nyhart shows, stood in stark contrast to the standard naturalist’s orientation toward classification. While this new biological perspective would eventually grow into the academic discipline of ecology, Modern Nature locates its roots outside the universities, in a vibrant realm of populist natural history inhabited by taxidermists and zookeepers, schoolteachers and museum reformers, amateur enthusiasts and nature protectionists. Probing the populist beginnings of animal ecology in Germany, Nyhart unites the history of popular natural history with that of elite science in a new way. In doing so, she brings to light a major orientation in late nineteenth-century biology that has long been eclipsed by Darwinism.