ABSTRACT
The idea that human societies are interwoven and evolving systems similar to those of the natural world has been widespread since the nineteenth century. Writers on this topic include the Chicago School of social ecology beginning in the 1910s, the anarchist social philosopher Murray Bookchin in the 1960s and 1970s, and ecological thinkers such as Gregory Bateson, Fritjof Capra, Joanna Macy, and Richard Norgaard in the late twentieth century. “Social ecology” implies a holistic, relational analysis of human systems that is potentially useful to help societies to more consciously direct their own social evolution in the future.
