Carolyn Merchant (born July 12, 1936 in Rochester, New York) is an American ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science[1] most famous for her theory (and book of the same title) on The Death of Nature, whereby she identifies the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century as the period when science began to atomize, objectify, and dissect nature, foretelling its eventual conception as composed of inert atomic particles.

Merchant argues that prior to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, nature was conceived of as the benevolent mother of all things, albeit sometimes wild.

The female earth was central to organic cosmology that was undermined by the Scientific Revolution and the rise of a market-oriented culture ... for sixteenth-century Europeans the root metaphor binding together the self, society and the cosmos was that of an organism ... organismic theory emphasized interdependence among the parts of the human body, subordination of individual to communal purposes in family, community, and state, and vital life permeate the cosmos to the lowliest stone.

[17]Merchant cites Francis Bacon's use of female metaphors to describe the exploitation of nature at this time: "she is either free, ... or driven out of her ordinary course by the perverseness, insolence and forwardness of matter and violence of impediments ... or she is put in constraint, molded and made as it were new by art and the hand of man; as in things artificial ... nature takes orders from man and works under his authority".

The combined effects of industrialization, scientific exploration of nature, and the ascendancy of the dominion/domination metaphor over that of a nurturing Mother Earth, according to Merchant, can still be felt in social and political thought, as much as it was evident in the art, philosophy, and science of the seventeenth century.

Françoise d'Eaubonne coined the term ecofeminisme to portray the influence of women and their ability to generate an ecological revolution in her 1974 book Le Feminisme ou la Mort.

In Radical Ecology, Merchant argues that laws, regulations, and scientific research alone cannot reverse the spread of pollution or restore dwindling resources.

In order to maintain a livable world, we must formulate new social, economic, scientific, and spiritual approaches that will fundamentally transform human relationships with nature.

She explores the problems, ideas, and actions that will make society rethink, reconstruct, and reinvent its relationships with non-human nature in search of a livable world.

Merchant's Earthcare challenges humanity to revise the ways the Western world has produced, reproduced, and conceptualized its past relations with nature, and suggests a new partnership ethic of environmentalism which men and women alike can embrace.

It addresses issues such as the expulsion of native peoples from national parks, the preservation of the wilderness, and population growth in the light of gender, race, and class.

Along with subsequent advances in mechanics, hydrodynamics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism, nature came to be perceived as an orderly, rational, physical world that could be engineered, controlled, and managed.

Focusing on topics such as The Death of Nature, the Scientific Revolution, women in the history of science and environment, and partnership ethics, it synthesizes her writings and sets out a vision for the twenty-first century.

Using history, art, literature, religion, philosophy, ethics, and justice as the focal points, Merchant traces key figures and developments in the humanities throughout the Anthropocene era and explores how these disciplines might influence sustainability in the next century.

Each chapter of Major Problems in American Environmental History includes a map that situates the topic within a place and era, along with suggestions for further reading.

Green Versus Gold is an edited book that provides a compelling look at California's environmental history from its Native American past to conflicts and movements of recent decades.

It brings together a large storehouse of primary sources and interpretative essays to create a comprehensive picture of the history of ecological and human interactions in one of the nation's most diverse and resource-rich states.

This co-edited three-volume set provides not only broad historical coverage on how human beliefs and actions have altered the natural world, but also covers the latest developments in the field.

A festschrift honoring Carolyn Merchant's work, After the Death of Nature, edited by Kenneth Worthy, Elizabeth Allison, and Whitney A. Bauman, appeared in 2018.