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Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800
Throughout the ages man has struggled with his perceived place in the natural world. The idea of humans cultivating the Earth to suit specific needs is one of the greatest points of contention in this struggle. For how would have civilization progressed, if not by the clearance of the forests, the cultivation of the soil, and the conservation of wild landscape into human settlement? Yet what of the healing powers of unexploited nature, its long-term importance in the perpetuation of human civilization, and the inherent beauty of wild scenery? At no time were these questions addressed as pointedly and with such great consequence as in England between the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. "Between 1500 and 1800 there occurred a whole cluster of changes in the way in which men and women, at all social levels, perceived and classified the natural world around them," explains Keith Thomas. "New sensibilities arose toward animals, plants, and landscape. The relationship of man
to other species was redefined; and his right to exploit those species for his own advantage was sharply challenged."
Man and the Natural World aims not just to explain present interest in preserving the environment and protecting the rights of animals, but to reconstruct an earlier mental world. Thomas seeks to expose the assumptions beneath the perceptions, reasonings, and feelings of the inhabitants of early modern England toward the animals, birds, vegetation, and physical landscape among which they spent their lives, often in conditions of proximity which are now difficult for us to appreciate. It was a time when a conviction of man's ascendancy over the natural world gave way to a new concern for the environment and sense of kinship with other species. Here, for example, Thomas illustrates the changing attitudes toward the woodlands. John Morton observed in 1712, "In a country full of civilized inhabitants" timber could not be "suffered to grow. It must give way to fields and pastures, which are of more immediate use and concern to life." Shortly thereafter, in 1763, Edwin Lascelles
pronounced the "The beauty of a country consists chiefly in the wood." People's relationships with animals were also in the process of dramatic change as seen in their growing obsession with pet keeping. The use of human names for animals, the fact that pets were rarely eaten, though not for gastronomic reasons, and pets being included in family portraits and often fed better than the servants all demonstrated a major shift in man's position on human uniqueness.
The issues raised in this fascinating work are even more alive today than they were just ten years ago. Preserving the environment, saving the rain forests, and preventing the extinction of species may seem like fairly recent concerns, however, Man and the Natural World explores how these ideas took root long ago. These issues have much to offer not only environmental activists, but historians as well, for it is impossible to disentangle what the people of the past thought about plants and animals from what they thought about themselves.
to other species was redefined; and his right to exploit those species for his own advantage was sharply challenged."
Man and the Natural World aims not just to explain present interest in preserving the environment and protecting the rights of animals, but to reconstruct an earlier mental world. Thomas seeks to expose the assumptions beneath the perceptions, reasonings, and feelings of the inhabitants of early modern England toward the animals, birds, vegetation, and physical landscape among which they spent their lives, often in conditions of proximity which are now difficult for us to appreciate. It was a time when a conviction of man's ascendancy over the natural world gave way to a new concern for the environment and sense of kinship with other species. Here, for example, Thomas illustrates the changing attitudes toward the woodlands. John Morton observed in 1712, "In a country full of civilized inhabitants" timber could not be "suffered to grow. It must give way to fields and pastures, which are of more immediate use and concern to life." Shortly thereafter, in 1763, Edwin Lascelles
pronounced the "The beauty of a country consists chiefly in the wood." People's relationships with animals were also in the process of dramatic change as seen in their growing obsession with pet keeping. The use of human names for animals, the fact that pets were rarely eaten, though not for gastronomic reasons, and pets being included in family portraits and often fed better than the servants all demonstrated a major shift in man's position on human uniqueness.
The issues raised in this fascinating work are even more alive today than they were just ten years ago. Preserving the environment, saving the rain forests, and preventing the extinction of species may seem like fairly recent concerns, however, Man and the Natural World explores how these ideas took root long ago. These issues have much to offer not only environmental activists, but historians as well, for it is impossible to disentangle what the people of the past thought about plants and animals from what they thought about themselves.
332 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 1983
37 people are currently reading
675 people want to read
About the author
Keith Thomas
77 books54 followersSir Keith Thomas was born in 1933 and educated at Barry County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. He has spent all his academic career in Oxford, as a senior scholar of St. Antony's (1955), a Prize Fellow of All Souls (1955-57), Fellow and Tutor of St John's (1957-85), Reader (1978-85), ad hominem Professor (1986) and President of Corpus Christi (1986-2000). He returned to All Souls as a Distinguished Fellow (2001-15). He is now an Honorary Fellow of All Souls, Balliol, Corpus Christi and St John's. Elected FBA in 1979, he was President of the British Academy (1993-97). He is a member of the Academia Europaea, a Founding Member of the Learned Society of Wales, a Foreign Hon. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an Hon. Member of the Japan Academy. He has held visiting appointments at Princeton, Stanford, Columbia and Louisiana State Universities. He has published essays on many different aspects of the social and cultural history of early modern England.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 26, 2015
As someone interested in animal welfare issues I think this is the best book I have ever read.
March 23, 2015
Keith Thomas published Man and the Natural World in 1983. It was based on a series of lectures by the famous English historian George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962), an upper class outdoorsman who was sickened by how the Industrial Revolution was mutilating the natural world, and ruining a precious spiritual resource.
The subject of the book was how the relationship between humans and the natural world changed in England between 1500 and 1800. Prior to 1500 was the medieval era, a time of endless turbulence, bizarre superstition, and devastating plagues. After 1800 came the hurricane of the Industrial Revolution, the world wars, the brief era of cheap and abundant energy, and the tsunami of hysterical insatiable consumers.
The period between 1500 and 1800 was also an explosion of change. Europe was being flooded with vast wealth and cheap food from a network of new colonies. The rising age of modern science was reshaping our perception of the world, leaving obsolete religious beliefs in its dust. Population was exploding, the human realm was spreading across the countryside, and England was speeding toward the elimination of nature. It was three centuries of growth that enriched the greedy, exploited the powerless, and tormented tender-hearted nature lovers.
When Trevelyan delivered his lectures prior to World War II, he was deeply pessimistic. He fantasized that before 1800, the works of man had only added to the beauty of nature. After 1800, the process reversed course and became rapid destruction. His lectures tried to present the era between 1500 and 1800 as a time of awakening, of gradually spreading changes in awareness. Readers in 2012 will find this notion difficult to swallow. To us, the past looks more like a snowballing catastrophe. The world is in far worse shape than it was 200 years ago.
In 1500, the English commonly treated animals in a brutal manner — not because they were jerks, but because the notion of being respectful of animals had never occurred to them. The church had programmed society to believe that humans inhabited the realm between angels and brutes, and that nature was created for the use of man. So, the lords kicked the peasants, and the peasants kicked the critters. Horses were often worked to death, and then pushed into the ditch to feed the ravenous packs of mangy dogs.
Thomas presented a theory that the miserable loneliness of growing urbanization created a pet fad, and that close contact with submissive doggies and kitties showed us that animals were not dumb lumps of walking meat. Because of this new sensitivity, many people became more aware of animal abuse. This led to the creation of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. Some came to believe that the killing of any animal was wrong, and these became vegetarians. Thomas was sympathetic with the fair treatment of animals, but he was taken aback by those who referred to the deliberate systematic extermination of wolves as a holocaust.
Most of the book examined the relationship between humans and animals. But Thomas also discussed the countryside, the green world. Prior to 1500, forests were extensive. They were home to scary animals and mean outlaws. Deforestation was seen as beneficial, converting wild chaos into civilized order. Both farmers and industry rapidly gobbled up the trees, and as the forests vanished, people began to regard the survivors with increasing fondness. Laws were passed to protect them, and to encourage tree planting.
In 1500, cities were the hip place to be. By 1800, they had become filthy, crowded, and creepy. Urban living inspired a growing number of people to escape to the countryside whenever possible. Over the years, a trickle turned into a torrent, and the nobility became alarmed that their country estates would soon be surrounded by a rash of tourist traps. They opposed new railroads in their homelands.
Wildness became trendy. Geometric gardens were out, as were identical trees planted in straight lines. Weeds were in. Landscaping that resembled wild nature was totally cool. Artists got rich painting gorgeous panoramas showing little or no evidence of human society.
Trevelyan’s pessimism was sane and reasonable. In the years following 1800, nature has taken her worst pounding ever, and animal misery has reached breathtaking new heights. There has never been a generation more isolated from the natural world than our own. With his book, Thomas gave us a revealing glimpse into a forgotten era when life was filled with animals, a time when civilization was muscle powered, and every breath was sweetened with the intoxicating aroma of steaming fresh manure.
Today we are suffering in the final decades of a tragic experiment with fossil powered civilization. Sane people eagerly await the year when the lights go out, the cell phones die, the machines go silent, and we return to a muscle powered way of life — the end of a long, miserable, stunningly destructive war on life, and the beginning of a much needed healing process. The future will be filled with animals once again. We will have no choice but to live in a radically different manner. Many horrid habits will be impossible to continue.
This book is a feast of material for creative people who are busy imagining the new stories and visions that will inspire the herd to wander in healthier directions. It provides us with perspective on how trends have flailed and floundered over the centuries, and it helpfully marks numerous approaches as failures. Attempts to reform civilization have enjoyed little success — its swift currents always sweep away intelligent ideas.
Obviously, the only “solution” for the problem of industrial civilization is to summon a priest to perform the last rites, and then take it off life support. We have been stumbling and staggering for centuries, lost and confused. Many powerful new stories will be needed to help us remember what it means to be human, to remember the long-forgotten treasure of wildness and freedom, to remember what it feels like to be fully alive. Go for it!
The subject of the book was how the relationship between humans and the natural world changed in England between 1500 and 1800. Prior to 1500 was the medieval era, a time of endless turbulence, bizarre superstition, and devastating plagues. After 1800 came the hurricane of the Industrial Revolution, the world wars, the brief era of cheap and abundant energy, and the tsunami of hysterical insatiable consumers.
The period between 1500 and 1800 was also an explosion of change. Europe was being flooded with vast wealth and cheap food from a network of new colonies. The rising age of modern science was reshaping our perception of the world, leaving obsolete religious beliefs in its dust. Population was exploding, the human realm was spreading across the countryside, and England was speeding toward the elimination of nature. It was three centuries of growth that enriched the greedy, exploited the powerless, and tormented tender-hearted nature lovers.
When Trevelyan delivered his lectures prior to World War II, he was deeply pessimistic. He fantasized that before 1800, the works of man had only added to the beauty of nature. After 1800, the process reversed course and became rapid destruction. His lectures tried to present the era between 1500 and 1800 as a time of awakening, of gradually spreading changes in awareness. Readers in 2012 will find this notion difficult to swallow. To us, the past looks more like a snowballing catastrophe. The world is in far worse shape than it was 200 years ago.
In 1500, the English commonly treated animals in a brutal manner — not because they were jerks, but because the notion of being respectful of animals had never occurred to them. The church had programmed society to believe that humans inhabited the realm between angels and brutes, and that nature was created for the use of man. So, the lords kicked the peasants, and the peasants kicked the critters. Horses were often worked to death, and then pushed into the ditch to feed the ravenous packs of mangy dogs.
Thomas presented a theory that the miserable loneliness of growing urbanization created a pet fad, and that close contact with submissive doggies and kitties showed us that animals were not dumb lumps of walking meat. Because of this new sensitivity, many people became more aware of animal abuse. This led to the creation of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. Some came to believe that the killing of any animal was wrong, and these became vegetarians. Thomas was sympathetic with the fair treatment of animals, but he was taken aback by those who referred to the deliberate systematic extermination of wolves as a holocaust.
Most of the book examined the relationship between humans and animals. But Thomas also discussed the countryside, the green world. Prior to 1500, forests were extensive. They were home to scary animals and mean outlaws. Deforestation was seen as beneficial, converting wild chaos into civilized order. Both farmers and industry rapidly gobbled up the trees, and as the forests vanished, people began to regard the survivors with increasing fondness. Laws were passed to protect them, and to encourage tree planting.
In 1500, cities were the hip place to be. By 1800, they had become filthy, crowded, and creepy. Urban living inspired a growing number of people to escape to the countryside whenever possible. Over the years, a trickle turned into a torrent, and the nobility became alarmed that their country estates would soon be surrounded by a rash of tourist traps. They opposed new railroads in their homelands.
Wildness became trendy. Geometric gardens were out, as were identical trees planted in straight lines. Weeds were in. Landscaping that resembled wild nature was totally cool. Artists got rich painting gorgeous panoramas showing little or no evidence of human society.
Trevelyan’s pessimism was sane and reasonable. In the years following 1800, nature has taken her worst pounding ever, and animal misery has reached breathtaking new heights. There has never been a generation more isolated from the natural world than our own. With his book, Thomas gave us a revealing glimpse into a forgotten era when life was filled with animals, a time when civilization was muscle powered, and every breath was sweetened with the intoxicating aroma of steaming fresh manure.
Today we are suffering in the final decades of a tragic experiment with fossil powered civilization. Sane people eagerly await the year when the lights go out, the cell phones die, the machines go silent, and we return to a muscle powered way of life — the end of a long, miserable, stunningly destructive war on life, and the beginning of a much needed healing process. The future will be filled with animals once again. We will have no choice but to live in a radically different manner. Many horrid habits will be impossible to continue.
This book is a feast of material for creative people who are busy imagining the new stories and visions that will inspire the herd to wander in healthier directions. It provides us with perspective on how trends have flailed and floundered over the centuries, and it helpfully marks numerous approaches as failures. Attempts to reform civilization have enjoyed little success — its swift currents always sweep away intelligent ideas.
Obviously, the only “solution” for the problem of industrial civilization is to summon a priest to perform the last rites, and then take it off life support. We have been stumbling and staggering for centuries, lost and confused. Many powerful new stories will be needed to help us remember what it means to be human, to remember the long-forgotten treasure of wildness and freedom, to remember what it feels like to be fully alive. Go for it!
October 11, 2025
Expectation: this will be a nice work of naturalism.
Reality: this was one of most significant books I've read in the last several years - a profoundly theological exploration of the church's language across time about our fellow creatures.
Keith Thomas previously won the Wolfson, an award for particularly literary works of history, and it shows in his ability to weave a narrative out of a staggering amount of research. I don't know that Thomas is personally religious, but the story of changing attitudes towards the natural world turns out to be a unexpectedly Christian one, often grounded in conviction of sin and a return to previously ignored passages of the Bible. I would have expected secularism's role to be much more significant.
I consistently felt convicted of the glib confidence that accompanies the undergraduate classical education. To be medievally educated in the 21st century is still to behave in much more modern (and actually good) ways towards other creatures than we are always aware of or honest about. In a world where we never have enough time to read everything, and we rightly question the hyper-individualism of "do your own research" we necessarily work in over-broad categories that rarely provide us with enough nuance about how human beings have lived and thought before us. I usually associate the Enlightenment with the loss of beauty and mystery, but thanks to this book, I have a new imagination for the voice of the early modern Church. It's one thing to have a conversation about the distinction between men and animals, sort ourselves into a category of thought and proceed to express the "correct" viewpoint. It's a different experience to read about the housewives who regularly nailed their living geese's feet to the floor, cut the legs off their live chickens, and let their pigs bleed out slowly, all over period of days in pursuit of the most flavorsome meat. As an animal agriculturalist, I care about helping Christian speak better about animals, but I've had little concept of the ways brothers and sisters from early modernity have worked to provide me with the words I use. The storytelling of a good work of history demands that we deepen our categories of thought.
Although I am often uncomfortable with the reasoning of those whose theology still shares a bed with Aristotle, I do reject most of the premises of the Enlightenment. However, I am reminded that hesitation to speak is virtuous if one cannot yet strongman one's opponents.
"So much for the [secular] intellectual origins of the campaign against unnecessary cruelty to animals. It grew out of the (minority) Christian tradition that man should take care of God's creation. It was enhanced by the collapse of the old view that the world existed exclusively for humanity; and it was consolidated by a new emphasis on sensation and feeling as the true basis for claim to moral consideration. In this way the anthropocentric tradition was, by a subtle dialectic, relentlessly adjusted to bring animals into the sphere of moral concern. The debate on animals furnishes yet another illustration of that shift to more secular modes of thinking...yet the initial impulse had been strongly religious."
Reality: this was one of most significant books I've read in the last several years - a profoundly theological exploration of the church's language across time about our fellow creatures.
Keith Thomas previously won the Wolfson, an award for particularly literary works of history, and it shows in his ability to weave a narrative out of a staggering amount of research. I don't know that Thomas is personally religious, but the story of changing attitudes towards the natural world turns out to be a unexpectedly Christian one, often grounded in conviction of sin and a return to previously ignored passages of the Bible. I would have expected secularism's role to be much more significant.
I consistently felt convicted of the glib confidence that accompanies the undergraduate classical education. To be medievally educated in the 21st century is still to behave in much more modern (and actually good) ways towards other creatures than we are always aware of or honest about. In a world where we never have enough time to read everything, and we rightly question the hyper-individualism of "do your own research" we necessarily work in over-broad categories that rarely provide us with enough nuance about how human beings have lived and thought before us. I usually associate the Enlightenment with the loss of beauty and mystery, but thanks to this book, I have a new imagination for the voice of the early modern Church. It's one thing to have a conversation about the distinction between men and animals, sort ourselves into a category of thought and proceed to express the "correct" viewpoint. It's a different experience to read about the housewives who regularly nailed their living geese's feet to the floor, cut the legs off their live chickens, and let their pigs bleed out slowly, all over period of days in pursuit of the most flavorsome meat. As an animal agriculturalist, I care about helping Christian speak better about animals, but I've had little concept of the ways brothers and sisters from early modernity have worked to provide me with the words I use. The storytelling of a good work of history demands that we deepen our categories of thought.
Although I am often uncomfortable with the reasoning of those whose theology still shares a bed with Aristotle, I do reject most of the premises of the Enlightenment. However, I am reminded that hesitation to speak is virtuous if one cannot yet strongman one's opponents.
"So much for the [secular] intellectual origins of the campaign against unnecessary cruelty to animals. It grew out of the (minority) Christian tradition that man should take care of God's creation. It was enhanced by the collapse of the old view that the world existed exclusively for humanity; and it was consolidated by a new emphasis on sensation and feeling as the true basis for claim to moral consideration. In this way the anthropocentric tradition was, by a subtle dialectic, relentlessly adjusted to bring animals into the sphere of moral concern. The debate on animals furnishes yet another illustration of that shift to more secular modes of thinking...yet the initial impulse had been strongly religious."
February 24, 2017
I bought this paperback edition in 1996. I've just finished reading it, that's 16.5 years to read one book. This is a wonderful book, I'd strongly urge everyone to read. I read and re-read whole swathes, then following the footnotes and references went and read as many of those I could too.
July 14, 2020
I have now read all(?) four of Thomas' major books and can confidently say he has never written a dull sentence. Engaging, perceptive and breathtakingly knowledgeable about his period.
Best British Historian of the last 50 years??
Best British Historian of the last 50 years??
August 21, 2018
In Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800, historian Keith Thomas argued that English sentiments regarding the natural world progressed from exploitation in the sixteenth century to conservation in the nineteenth. Before 1500, the prevailing worldview in England had been that wilderness was something to be subdued and civilized. After 1800, the prevailing belief was that wilderness needed to be saved from misuse by humanity.
The English view of nature prior to 1500 was theologically-based. According to scripture, God created each animal and plant to serve man and subordinate to his wishes and needs. Animals were considered to be automaton without souls, and previously wild animals had to be broken in order to use them as labor and food. Many classical scholars also taught that human beings were unique and separate from the animal kingdom. According to Aristotle, only mankind possessed reason.
The common man used religion and morality to distinguish himself from animals. Evil spirits almost always took the form of an animal, and the devil appeared as a goat. Likewise, mankind’s bodily impulses were negatively equated with animals and considered things to be subdued. Englishmen also labeled outsiders as bestial. Anyone who wasn’t Christian was considered worse than a beast and in need of civilizing. The aristocracy also put the poor into this category. However, Thomas was careful to point out that this “uncompromisingly aggressive view of man’s place in the natural world… was by no means representative of all opinion in early modern England.”
Many new developments gradually challenged the prevailing view. One of those developments was the scientific study of the natural world. Instead of learning about plants and animals for their usefulness, naturalists began to study them in and of themselves and categorized them accordingly. They began to see nature not as ugly, but as beautiful. The natural world existed for its own sake, independent of the needs of humans.
Of course, human’s day-to-day experiences with animals conflicted with the theological view of nature. In reality, Thomas wrote, there was no strict separation between man and nature. Englishmen lived and worked with animals on a daily basis, not just because there were much more of them at the time, but also because they depended on them so much for food, labor, and companionship.
There were certain animals that were favored above all others. At the end of the seventeenth century, horses were used excessively in England and they only increased in value as time went on. The English were also obsessed with dogs, and even the poorest person owned one or more. Cats, birds, and other small critters found their way into homes, and all of those pets were excluded from the list of edible creatures, even if they had been eaten in earlier times. Keeping household pets “buttressed the claims for animal intelligence and character.”
The eighteenth century saw new sensibilities in regards to the treatment of animals. Some Englishmen even questioned the wanton destruction of animals that were considered vermin. Sensation had been ascribed to animals themselves, and the more ‘human’ they acted, the more compassion was felt towards them. This new attitude was linked with the growth of towns and the replacement of animals as a means of production.
Growing compassion for animals also extended to the plant world. By the late Middle Ages, England had largely been deforested in the effort to eliminate wilderness, but by the seventeenth century trees were being replaced for practical and industrial purposes. Finally, trees were seen as aesthetically pleasing and a symbol of royalty. By the eighteenth century there was a conscious effort to replant the forests of England.
Finally, Thomas argued that the growth of pollution and overcrowding in the cities changed the English perspective that cities were benevolent places of civilization. By 1800 it became a widespread belief that cities were unholy and the natural countryside was pure.
Man and the Natural World was a meticulous examination of Englishmen’s changing attitudes in regard to the natural world. As a broad subject, Keith Thomas did an excellent job of providing specific examples to illustrate his thesis. This anecdote-driven writing style had its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, the examples were often entertaining and they provided a broader look into society in England at the time.
On the other hand, reading such a long bullet-list of examples was tiring and it kept his argument largely dependent on the opinions of a few. While having solid, specific examples to illustrate his point, he missed out on providing a concrete sense that these opinions extended to the wider society at large. In fact, Thomas often reminded the reader that not everyone felt the same way, to protect himself from criticism.
Overall, Man and the Natural World is an excellent work and an interesting read. It shows how our contemporary debate over conservation and exploitation of the natural world is not unique to our time.
The English view of nature prior to 1500 was theologically-based. According to scripture, God created each animal and plant to serve man and subordinate to his wishes and needs. Animals were considered to be automaton without souls, and previously wild animals had to be broken in order to use them as labor and food. Many classical scholars also taught that human beings were unique and separate from the animal kingdom. According to Aristotle, only mankind possessed reason.
The common man used religion and morality to distinguish himself from animals. Evil spirits almost always took the form of an animal, and the devil appeared as a goat. Likewise, mankind’s bodily impulses were negatively equated with animals and considered things to be subdued. Englishmen also labeled outsiders as bestial. Anyone who wasn’t Christian was considered worse than a beast and in need of civilizing. The aristocracy also put the poor into this category. However, Thomas was careful to point out that this “uncompromisingly aggressive view of man’s place in the natural world… was by no means representative of all opinion in early modern England.”
Many new developments gradually challenged the prevailing view. One of those developments was the scientific study of the natural world. Instead of learning about plants and animals for their usefulness, naturalists began to study them in and of themselves and categorized them accordingly. They began to see nature not as ugly, but as beautiful. The natural world existed for its own sake, independent of the needs of humans.
Of course, human’s day-to-day experiences with animals conflicted with the theological view of nature. In reality, Thomas wrote, there was no strict separation between man and nature. Englishmen lived and worked with animals on a daily basis, not just because there were much more of them at the time, but also because they depended on them so much for food, labor, and companionship.
There were certain animals that were favored above all others. At the end of the seventeenth century, horses were used excessively in England and they only increased in value as time went on. The English were also obsessed with dogs, and even the poorest person owned one or more. Cats, birds, and other small critters found their way into homes, and all of those pets were excluded from the list of edible creatures, even if they had been eaten in earlier times. Keeping household pets “buttressed the claims for animal intelligence and character.”
The eighteenth century saw new sensibilities in regards to the treatment of animals. Some Englishmen even questioned the wanton destruction of animals that were considered vermin. Sensation had been ascribed to animals themselves, and the more ‘human’ they acted, the more compassion was felt towards them. This new attitude was linked with the growth of towns and the replacement of animals as a means of production.
Growing compassion for animals also extended to the plant world. By the late Middle Ages, England had largely been deforested in the effort to eliminate wilderness, but by the seventeenth century trees were being replaced for practical and industrial purposes. Finally, trees were seen as aesthetically pleasing and a symbol of royalty. By the eighteenth century there was a conscious effort to replant the forests of England.
Finally, Thomas argued that the growth of pollution and overcrowding in the cities changed the English perspective that cities were benevolent places of civilization. By 1800 it became a widespread belief that cities were unholy and the natural countryside was pure.
Man and the Natural World was a meticulous examination of Englishmen’s changing attitudes in regard to the natural world. As a broad subject, Keith Thomas did an excellent job of providing specific examples to illustrate his thesis. This anecdote-driven writing style had its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, the examples were often entertaining and they provided a broader look into society in England at the time.
On the other hand, reading such a long bullet-list of examples was tiring and it kept his argument largely dependent on the opinions of a few. While having solid, specific examples to illustrate his point, he missed out on providing a concrete sense that these opinions extended to the wider society at large. In fact, Thomas often reminded the reader that not everyone felt the same way, to protect himself from criticism.
Overall, Man and the Natural World is an excellent work and an interesting read. It shows how our contemporary debate over conservation and exploitation of the natural world is not unique to our time.
December 11, 2012
I did not actually intend to read this thing, not entirely. I am using it for research so I planned to skim through, find the useful bits. Use it and Lose it. BUT...it was just so damn thorough in a surprisingly interesting way...so I read the whole thing.
It was good...seriously.
It was good...seriously.
December 3, 2021
Fascinating collection of thought-provoking essays by the revered academic Sir Keith Thomas.
Despite being dry in places, it's easy to see why Man and the Natural World is deemed a classic within environmental and conservationist circles, as it brings to life the changing times of the 1500 (plague and superstition era) to the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. It snapshots how humans evolved to respect animals and the environment in some ways and destroy it in others for political and economical gains.
A must-read for anyone interested in the subject of animal welfare and environmental preservation.
Despite being dry in places, it's easy to see why Man and the Natural World is deemed a classic within environmental and conservationist circles, as it brings to life the changing times of the 1500 (plague and superstition era) to the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. It snapshots how humans evolved to respect animals and the environment in some ways and destroy it in others for political and economical gains.
A must-read for anyone interested in the subject of animal welfare and environmental preservation.
March 1, 2019
A bit dry, to be honest; for me, passion doesn't come through, so much as a train-spotter's calm nerdiness. The author's tendency simply to make lists can become a little wearing - but I'm not sure that the subject matter can be approached otherwise. Very enjoyable nonetheless, despite those occasional longueurs - and I now have another healthy batch of "Now, did you know that the linnet..." gambits ready for those conversational lulls. Hurrah.
January 10, 2023
Fascinating content, but academic and hard to read. At least a half dozen citations on every page. But the content is very interesting - describes how attitudes toward animals, plants and wild places changed over several hundred years, often because of re-interpretations of the Bible. I wish there were a long essay that covered the same ground...
October 19, 2022
Thomas charts the changes in attitude of the British toward nature in the early modern period. The description is delivered with brio and elan and an almost unbelievable number of sources. A fine book.
September 12, 2024
This book is at least 10 times as interesting as it has any right to be. Took me forever to read, but it felt like every sentence was taking apart the obvious truths in my brain, giving them a deep cleaning and then reassembling them entirely.
December 9, 2021
The legendary synthesis between Anthropology and Academic History excellently tracks changes in human perception of the environment.
Want to read
December 27, 2023Do mesmo autor de “A religião e o declínio da magia”, livro lido inúmeras vezes por Karnal, por indicação de Laura de Mello e Souza
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2017
This work has a longer span than that of Thomas’s most famous book, ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic,’ which constrained its temporal timeframe to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although on occasion it strayed beyond these bounds both before and after, adding an additional century. The century that he adds is the century of the Enlightenment: the eighteenth, with a few ‘unofficial’ forays into the nineteenth. For this wandering beyond his self-imposed bounds, he can be readily forgiven, for what he has produced in this volume is an illuminating guide to popular and learned beliefs relating to the animal and vegetable worlds in early modern England, and how general views relating to these non-human domains shifted during the period in question.
In all of his major publications, Thomas acknowledges that he tends to generalise and lump sources together, making frequent recourse to quotation to illustrate individuals’ views on the matters that he is considering. Such views can at times perhaps run the risk of providing a somewhat skewed picture of general opinion, but Thomas tries to be judicious in choosing a diverse range of primary source materials to bolster the points that he makes. What we thereby obtain is but an imperfect window into the mental universe of the past, but by dint of our very inability to access it directly first-hand, this is, perhaps, the best that we can hope for. Besides, it could equally be argued that it is not possible for us to capture and appreciate the full and rich heterogeneity of contemporary attitudes to the natural world without devoting our lives to observing this subject. We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, imperfect observers of, as well as shapers of, the attitudinal currents that comprise our social world. Nonetheless, Thomas is able to identify and highlight broad trends and shifts in general attitudes between 1500 and 1800, which to a significant extent are expressive of the early conquest and domination of the natural world in England.
It was in England that some of the earliest attempts were made to emulate Nature with the creation of landscape gardening, and that the public acquired a taste for the picturesque and visiting the countryside. The previously perceived ‘horrid wastes’ of mountain and heath, had by the latter part of the eighteenth century become seats of natural sublimity, in which the urban middle classes in particular could seek physical and spiritual refreshment. It seems that the growth of urbanisation and increasing secularisation of knowledge contributed significantly to the emergence of new attitudes within this class in particular, with their estrangement from Nature allowing for a re-evaluation of it as constituting something of value in its own right.
The key dilemmas presented by the human domination and use of the natural world had clearly emerged by the close of the period in consideration: the exploitation of Nature versus conservation; anthropocentrism versus a vague sentiment of pantheism, and the rights of animals constituting some of the more important ones here discussed. As with ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic,’ ‘Man and the Natural World,’ is another volume which I would recommend to anyone interested in the history of early modern England.
In all of his major publications, Thomas acknowledges that he tends to generalise and lump sources together, making frequent recourse to quotation to illustrate individuals’ views on the matters that he is considering. Such views can at times perhaps run the risk of providing a somewhat skewed picture of general opinion, but Thomas tries to be judicious in choosing a diverse range of primary source materials to bolster the points that he makes. What we thereby obtain is but an imperfect window into the mental universe of the past, but by dint of our very inability to access it directly first-hand, this is, perhaps, the best that we can hope for. Besides, it could equally be argued that it is not possible for us to capture and appreciate the full and rich heterogeneity of contemporary attitudes to the natural world without devoting our lives to observing this subject. We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, imperfect observers of, as well as shapers of, the attitudinal currents that comprise our social world. Nonetheless, Thomas is able to identify and highlight broad trends and shifts in general attitudes between 1500 and 1800, which to a significant extent are expressive of the early conquest and domination of the natural world in England.
It was in England that some of the earliest attempts were made to emulate Nature with the creation of landscape gardening, and that the public acquired a taste for the picturesque and visiting the countryside. The previously perceived ‘horrid wastes’ of mountain and heath, had by the latter part of the eighteenth century become seats of natural sublimity, in which the urban middle classes in particular could seek physical and spiritual refreshment. It seems that the growth of urbanisation and increasing secularisation of knowledge contributed significantly to the emergence of new attitudes within this class in particular, with their estrangement from Nature allowing for a re-evaluation of it as constituting something of value in its own right.
The key dilemmas presented by the human domination and use of the natural world had clearly emerged by the close of the period in consideration: the exploitation of Nature versus conservation; anthropocentrism versus a vague sentiment of pantheism, and the rights of animals constituting some of the more important ones here discussed. As with ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic,’ ‘Man and the Natural World,’ is another volume which I would recommend to anyone interested in the history of early modern England.
December 25, 2017
An entertaining book! It's very finely crafted and succinct in demonstrating the cultural changes that took place in this period. I now have high hopes for Keith Thomas's more famous book.
June 5, 2012
What a wonderful book! The author Keith Thomas offers a well documented history of mankinds attitudes to nature. I especially enjoyed the chapters that outline the changing opinions on the ethical treatment of animals. Many of the pro and con arguments are echoed today and there were just as many radicals then as now. I highly recommend this book.
December 25, 2008
I read the hardback edition.
August 11, 2011
After Religion and the Decline of Magic, found the book very pedestrian & dry.
August 7, 2013
Excellent book. My research took me to one chapter only in any detail but Keith Thomas is a very well respected historian so for early modern history, he should be among your top ten.
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