Around the world with writers, scientists and philosophers (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780645464894)

In this late work by one of France's most original philosophers, Michel Serres undertakes an extraordinary intellectual voyage through literature, science, anthropology and memory. Drawing on the anthropological theories of Philippe Descola, Serres re-examines Western culture through the lens of four fundamental worldviews: animism, totemism, naturalism and analogism.

Moving effortlessly between personal recollection, philosophical reflection and literary criticism, Serres traces hidden continuities between ancient myth, modern science, rural life, religion and contemporary thought. Wolves, rivers, fables, plants, saints, scientists and philosophers all become part of a vast comparative map of human understanding. In luminous, aphoristic prose, he asks whether the supposedly rational West has ever truly abandoned the "wild thought" it claims to have surpassed.

Part memoir, part philosophical meditation and part anthropological exploration, Around the World with Writers, Scientists and Philosophers is both playful and profound. Serres ranges from Jean de La Fontaine and Gustave Flaubert to botany, folklore and the origins of scientific thinking, revealing unexpected relationships between literature, ecology and knowledge itself.

Written with wit, erudition and imaginative freedom, this remarkable work offers a sweeping reconsideration of how humans relate to animals, landscapes, objects and one another - and proposes a radically interconnected vision of culture and thought.