One reason for our failure to 'save the earth,' argues Neil Evernden, is our disagreement about what 'nature' really is-how it works, what constitutes a risk to it, and even whether we ourselves are part of it. Nature is as much a social entity as a physical one. In addition to the physical resources to be harnessed and transformed, it consists of a domain of norms that may be called upon in defense of certain social ideals. In exploring the consequences of conventional understandings of nature, The Social Creation of Nature also seeks a way around the limitations of a socially created nature in order to defend what is actually imperiled-'wildness,' in which, Thoreau wrote, lies hope for 'the preservation of the world.'