“But as Jedediah Purdy reminds us in his dazzling new book, “After Nature,” our relationship with the nonhuman world has proved flexible over time. People have imagined nature in a great many ways across history.”
““The main premise here is that nothing is isolated,” says Purdy. “The world is a network of inter-permeable systems, so that what comes out of a smokestack can travel through wind, rain, groundwater, and soil, and end up in flesh.” The “Anthropocene” or “age of humans” is, in some ways, a logical extension of this view.”