“The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the mid-eighteenth century and continuing for the next 120 years shifted production from handcrafts to machine-made factory goods and in so doing completely changed the relationship of people to nature, the relationship of people to each other, politics, art, and architecture—the look and thought of the world.”

A key idea from the Introduction is that humanity’s relationship to nature changed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The massive increase in productive capacity brought on by the Industrial Revolution suddenly required an endless and continually growing supply of raw materials. This fed off and exacerbated the human-centered attitude that nature is indestructible and the world’s natural resources exist for human consumption.

“Darwin’s ideas were extremely controversial in 1859. Some people were upset that he did not see nature as kind. Others thought his vision of how humans evolved conflicted with what was written in the Bible. They did not like the idea that he accorded no special mystery to the creation of man, that it was just another animal created by chance experimentation in nature.”

Some of Mark Kurlansky’s ideas in this book are also controversial because of their implications for humanity. The types of changes we’d need to make, our role in the destruction of the planet, and the anxiety that comes from accepting the damage and possible danger to come make people hesitant and reluctant to accept the facts he presents.

“It is important to understand that there are not two worlds: the world of humans and a separate world of plants and animals. There isn’t a ‘natural world’ and a ‘man-made world.’ We all live on the same planet and live in the same natural order.”

Another key idea from the introduction is that human beings do not exist outside of nature. We belong to the same natural order as every other living organism and are equally susceptible to the consequences that come when the balance is upset and self-corrects.