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In this wide-ranging exploration of the role of forests in Western thought, Robert Pogue Harrison enriches our understanding not only of the forest's place in the cultural imagination of the West, but also of the ecological dilemmas that now confront us so urgently. Consistently insightful and beautifully written, this work is especially compelling at a time when the forest, as a source of wonder, respect, and meaning, disappears daily from the earth. "Forests is one of the most remarkable essays on the human place in nature I have ever read, and belongs on the small shelf that includes Raymond Williams' masterpiece, The Country and the City. Elegantly conceived, beautifully written, and powerfully argued, [Forests] is a model of scholarship at its passionate best. No one who cares about cultural history, about the human place in nature, or about the future of our earthly home, should miss it.-William Cronon, Yale Review "Forests is, among other things, a work of scholarship, and one of immense value . . . one that we have needed. It can be read and reread, added to and commented on for some time to come."-John Haines, The New York Times Book Review

Forests in literature. --- Forests and forestry in literature --- Thematology --- biological sciences, trees, sociology, western thought, philosophy, cultural imagination, ecological dilemmas, insightful, beautifully written, environmentalism, environment, conservation, wildlife, mythology, essays, essay collection, history, culture, human place, literature, criticism, enlightenment, nostalgia, forestry, biology, botany, humanity, social issues, activism, geography, metaphysics, heidegger, relationship with nature.

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This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment-characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason-that has led to many of the disasters of modern life.

Science --- Vitalism. --- Biology --- Life (Biology) --- Mechanism (Philosophy) --- History --- Philosophy --- Vitalism.. --- Science -- History -- 18th century. --- 18th century. --- animism. --- charles louis dumas. --- chemistry. --- counter enlightenment. --- cuvier. --- early modern enlightenment. --- enlightenment. --- epigenesis. --- generation. --- history of science. --- history. --- life force. --- life science. --- mechanism. --- modernity. --- natural history. --- natural philosophy. --- natural world. --- nature. --- naturphilosophie. --- philosophy. --- physiology. --- reason. --- relationship with nature. --- religion and science. --- reproduction. --- romanticism. --- science. --- scientific disciplines. --- spark of life. --- stahlian chemistry. --- vitalism. --- william cullen.