The Theater of Nature is histoire totale of the last work of the political philosopher Jean Bodin, his Universae naturae theatrum (1596). Through Bodin's work, Ann Blair explores the fascinating and previously little known world of late Renaissance natural philosophy. A study of the text, of its context (through comparisons with different genres of "Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596) is an enigmatic, prolific writer of works in both Latin and in French. His Universae naturae theatrum [on early modern science] while influential in the seventeenth century, is rarely read today. . . . [Ann Blair corrects this in her] in-depth study of methods, modes of argument, metaphorical imagery, philosophy, theology, science, and reader response to Bodin's 633-page Latin work on natural philosophy. Hers is an exemplary model of a thorough and masterful, multi-faceted history of one book."