In general terms, one way of describing the world we live in is to say that it is made up of nature and society, and that human beings belong to both. This is the first volume to be published which addresses the historical contexts of the relations between these two characteristics of human nature. A distinguished international team aims to contribute - through selective, interdisciplinary studies - to a much-needed but currently scant debate over the reciprocal links between conceptions of nature and conceptions of society from the ancient Greek kosmos to late twentieth-century 'ecology'. Individual essays and the general conclusions of the volume are important not only for our understanding of the evolution of knowledge of nature and of society, but also for an awareness of the types of truth and perception produced in the process.