In Modern Nature, Lynn K. Nyhart traces the emergence of a “biological perspective” in late nineteenth-century Germany that emphasized the dynamic relationships among organisms, and between organisms and their environment. Examining this approach to nature in light of Germany’s fraught urbanization and industrialization, as well the opportunities presented by new and reforming institutions, she argues that rapid social change drew attention to the role of social relationships and physical environments in rendering a society—and nature—whole, functional, and healthy.

Lynn K. Nyhart is professor of history of science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of Biology Takes Form: Animal Morphology and the German University, 1800–1900, also published by the University of Chicago Press.