Who has the right to decide how nature is used, and in what ways? Recovering an overlooked thread of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century environmental thought, Erin Drew shows that English writers of the period commonly believed that human beings had only the "usufruct" of the earth—the "right of temporary possession, use, or enjoyment of the advantages of property belonging to another, so far as may be had without causing damage or prejudice." The belief that human beings had only temporary and accountable possession of the world, which Drew labels the "usufructuary ethos," had profound ethical implications for the ways in which the English conceived of the ethics of power and use. Drew’s book traces the usufructuary ethos from the religious and legal writings of the seventeenth century through mid-eighteenth-century poems of colonial commerce, attending to the particular political, economic, and environmental pressures that shaped, transformed, and ultimately sidelined it. Although a study of past ideas, The Usufructuary Ethos resonates with contemporary debates about our human responsibilities to the natural world in the face of climate change and mass extinction.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
O'Brien, William E.;
Njambi, Wairim Ngar iya;
(2012)
Marginal Voices in “Wild” America: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and “Nature” in The National Parks
(/isis/citation/CBB001202113/)
Article
Laroche, Jacques;
(2008)
Sustainability and Ethics
(/isis/citation/CBB001031107/)
Book
Drake, Brian Allen;
(2013)
Loving Nature, Fearing the State: Environmentalism and Antigovernment Politics before Reagan
(/isis/citation/CBB001420372/)
Chapter
Sörlin, Sverker;
(2013)
Epilogue: Preservation in the Age of Entanglement: STS and the History of Future Urban Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB001420350/)
Article
Cabin, Robert J.;
(2013)
Nature Is Dead. Long Live Nature!
(/isis/citation/CBB001320839/)
Book
Unger, Nancy C.;
(2012)
Beyond Nature's Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB001320951/)
Book
Jared Farmer;
(2022)
Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees
(/isis/citation/CBB057151563/)
Book
Ximo Guillem-Llobat;
Agustí Nieto-Galan;
(2020)
Tóxicos invisibles: La construcción de la ignorancia ambiental (Invisible toxins: The construction of environmental ignorance)
(/isis/citation/CBB507184262/)
Book
Christina Rae Butler;
(2020)
Lowcountry at High Tide: A History of Flooding, Drainage, and Reclamation in Charleston, South Carolina
(/isis/citation/CBB376520456/)
Article
Martin Schneider;
(2022)
Die Grenzen des Wachstums und die Umweltbewegung. Warnung vor der vermeidbaren Katastrophe [The Limits to Growth and the Environmental Movement. Warning of the avoidable catastrophe]
(/isis/citation/CBB158437657/)
Book
Dorceta E. Taylor;
(2016)
The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection
(/isis/citation/CBB299757225/)
Book
Simone Schleper;
(2019)
Planning for the Planet: Environmental Expertise and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1960–1980
(/isis/citation/CBB601917974/)
Book
Dario Generali;
(2016)
Le Radici della Razionalità Critica: Saperi, Pratiche, Teleologie. Studi offerti a Fabio Minazzi
(/isis/citation/CBB605863308/)
Book
Michela di Macco;
(2023)
Natura e artificio nell'Europa del Seicento e Settecento. Artisti, conoscitori e scienziati tra osservazione, invenzione e diffusione del sapere
(/isis/citation/CBB112929134/)
Book
Davide Arecco;
(2016)
Primavera nordica. Il vento del cambiamento scientifico in Scandinavia
(/isis/citation/CBB249933693/)
Chapter
Giovanni Santucci;
(2023)
Architettura e ornamento in A tour thro' the wole island of Great Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB764233955/)
Article
Zachary Piso;
Viorel Pâslaru;
(2021)
Introduction to values and pluralism in the environmental sciences: From inferences to institutions
(/isis/citation/CBB702377462/)
Article
Graney, Christopher M.;
(2011)
Contra Galileo: Riccioli's “Coriolis-Force” Argument on the Earth's Diurnal Rotation
(/isis/citation/CBB001036131/)
Book
Dario Generali;
(2016)
Le Radici della Razionalità Critica: Saperi, Pratiche, Teleologie. Studi offerti a Fabio Minazzi
(/isis/citation/CBB543052276/)
Chapter
Alessia Castagnino;
(2023)
Per ridurre tutto al facile, per rendere più accessibili le scienze. Esperienze di divulgazione delle conoscenze scientifico-naturalistiche nell'Italia del primo Settecento
(/isis/citation/CBB003584104/)
Be the first to comment!