Carolyn Merchant is engaged in research on the role of science in environmental history. She focuses on the scientific revolution in seventeenth century Europe and on the United States since the colonial period. She is interested in the ways that assumptions about science shape and justify uses of nature and natural resources and the human ethical relation to nature. Her current interests include the role of narrative in Western culture's engagement with nature, the ways that gender shapes that engagement, and the development of a partnership ethic between humanity and nature. Merchant is investigating the environmental history of the United States and California, exploring the development of natural resources--agriculture, forestry, ranching, minerals, and water--and the history of the environmental sciences and conservation. Her approach is designed to cast new light on the nation's and California's environmental history and contribute to a reassessment of policies.