The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton), by Thomas Cole, 1836.

The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton) (detail), by Thomas Cole, 1836. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1908.

Book of Nature

Volume 1, Number 3 | summer 2008

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Birds and Flowers of Spring and Summer, by Kano Eino, late seventeenth century.

Preamble

Messages in a Bottle

By Lewis H. Lapham

Nature is the only artist, the wonder of her collected works formed by their reflections in the mirrors of the human imagination.

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Painting of the flower garden dancing in her garden, surrounded by others

Funhouse Goddess

By D. Graham Burnett

It has never been easy to decipher what nature is trying to tell us, but that hasn’t stopped us from filling in the blanks. A look at the sexual politics of natural law theories.

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Map

Clearing the Inventory

Mining gold, chopping timber, tapping oil, fishing oceans.

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1687 | Cambridge

Law of the Land

Isaac Newton’s rules for investigating phenomena.More

1782 | New York

Environmental Determinism

Crèvecoeur looks at America in its proper light.More

1912 | Yosemite

Defying the Foul Fiend

John Muir defends man’s holiest temple.More

Charts & Graphs

Cost of a Fur Coat

The number of animals involved in the making of a coat.

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Black and white photograph of Friedrich Nietzsche with a huge mustache.

At the age of seventeen, Hawthorne mused to his mother about the possibility of “relying for support upon my pen.”

Painting of Greek philosopher Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Image of medieval traveler Sir John Mandeville.

American author Evan S. Connell.

If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

—Kurt Vonnegut, 1988

Engraving of William Shakespeare from the first folio edition.

Black and white photograph of Friedrich Nietzsche with a huge mustache.

William Shakespeare & Friedrich Nietzsche

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