At the beginning of the twenty-first century environmental change is a pressing public issue, and not just in the rich countries of the northern hemisphere. "Natures Past" seeks to lend some historical depth to current debates about modifications of ecological processes and systems, and also to explore the global dimensions of the dynamic. The ten essays in "Natures Past" bridge the chasm between orthodox environmental history and other novel approaches to understanding the place of human communities in past biophysical environments. Discussions of malaria-bearing mosquitoes, Maine lobster fishing, Bornean durian husbandry, and American lawn mowing, among other things, suggest how ecology, culture, and market interact to change the fate, and the value, of nature in each context. This collection, comprised of contributions by anthropologists, foresters, historians, and literature specialists, shows that long before the twentieth century humans caused, worried about, and endured changes in the natural world they inhabited.
"Natures Past" thus creates better, more nuanced, richer, and more complex understandings of the longstanding dialectic between people and their environments, and introduces to readers the wealth of perspectives and insights that a careful consideration of past interactions between people and their natural environments makes possible.