Renaissance: New World, New Nature, New Humans

This chapter focuses on pre-Modernity, also known as Renaissance. This period spans nearly two centuries (sixteenth and seventeenth) and saw two major events in planetary history: the advent of modern science and the arrival of the European colonisers in the Americas. The chapter addresses the extent to which they are interrelated, as well as the consequences of the increasing fracture between humans and non-human elements of nature. Particular attention is dedicated to the letter ‘Mundus Novus’ (New World), written by navigator Amerigo Vespucci to his Portuguese sponsors around 1503, during his travels along the Atlantic coast of the Americas. It described what to him seemed like a ‘paradise’: the harmonious life between the Tupinambá indigenous people of Brazil, the sea and the forest. Influential to such an extent that the continent was named after Amerigo and thereof nicknamed ‘New World’. His letter arguably influenced Thomas More, who wrote ‘Utopia’ partly inspired by it. The chapter posits that Amerigo’s vision is a Western precursor of the sustainability utopia. However, it not only was not accomplished, but European colonisation meant the eradication of many local indigenous peoples and nature degradation.