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Clojure is more like scheme in that it only has a one scope environment. Common Lisp (and Lisp) are defined by having 2 scope in the environment. One scope for the functions and one scope for variables, if I remember correctly. An easy way to learn your way around lisp is to read and work through Graham's essay "Roots of Lisp": http://paulgraham.com/rootsoflisp.html

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Also called Lisp-1 vs. Lisp-2; mainline LISP has separate namespaces for function and variable values, Scheme and Clojure have just one.

This was the big breaking change from Scheme that CL wasn't willing to make because it would have broken too much invaluable code.

...because it was a bad idea. I did some serious work with a Lisp-1 (Arc) and it was a PITA with no discernible win to it.

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