"Reinventing Eden traces the Garden of Eden myth from the Mesopotamian regions where agriculture - and the creation myth - first began, through the Greek and Roman empires, the Enlightenment, and the modern capitalist world. With eloquence and insight, Merchant shows how the drive to conquer nature, and to explore and settle the globe, springs from this utopian pastoral impulse.

Time and again, human manipulation of the environment is our downfall: Eden is achieved by fencing off pristine beauty in national parks and wildlife preserves, while leaving the majority of the Earth in ruins."--BOOK JACKET.