ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book probes the mutual entanglement of ecology and space from a historical perspective. Its first and most immediate goal is to advance space as a critical context for the study of the history of scientific ecology. The second goal of the book is to use ecological knowledge processes as a lens to shed new light on the spatial history of the natural environment. Space and place, for a long time only the preoccupation of geographers, have recently begun to occupy a central role in the research agenda of the humanities and social sciences. This 'spatial turn', as this reorientation has been dubbed, has manifested itself in a new interest in the cultural dimension of spatial entities such as cities, regions, nations, and landscapes.
