Many philosophers and scientists over the course of history have held that the world is alive. It has a soul, which governs it and binds it together. This suggestion, once so wide-spread, may strike many of us today as strange and perhaps antiquated. This volume assembles scholars of philosophy and history to tell a story about the evolution of the concept of the world soul from antiquity to the twentieth century that will break down the historical barriers to understanding the world soul, both by exploring the concept in its various historical incarnations and by calling attention to some of the ways in which the concept still resonates in contemporary theories.
