The book will examine ways in which nature may be regarded as a touchstone of liberty in political thought, and do so by reference to the history of modern political ideas. After arguing that the genre of utopias and dystopias is the key modern example of popular literary forms in which major human hopes and fears about technological society are inscribed, arising as the genre does alongside the idea of progress and the origins of modern science, the book will examine the ways in which freedom and nature are portrayed in the four most influential dystopian novels of the 20 th century: Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's 1984 and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. These books will be examined successively, thus tracking both the relevant development of the genre in relation to political events and the ways in which nature is portrayed as an oppositional actor against the excesses of political manipulation within them, with the conclusions then being applied to green and dystopian reflections for the present and the likely near future. A strong underlying theme is thus the focus on the divisions between technology and nature, and between the realms of human manipulation on the one side and nature on the other - as manifested, for instance, in George Orwell's dramatic juxtaposition of the 'Golden Country' landscape, symbolising spontaneous feeling, against the dingy surveillance society of the Party's totalitarian London. The primary objective of the book is to explore ways in which vitally significant and often overlooked connections exist between the concept and experience of nature on the one side and the conditions, exercise and practices of human freedom on the other. In doing so, it will also seek to make a contribution both to the history of ideas and to contemporary environmental political theory.