The Ecocentrists

A History of Radical Environmentalism

by Keith Makoto Woodhouse

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.

Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org

*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.

Pub Date Jun 05 2018 | Archive Date Sep 10 2018

History | Outdoors & Nature

Talking about this book? Use #TheEcocentrists #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!

Description

Disenchanted with the mainstream environmental movement, a new, more radical kind of environmental activist emerged in the 1980s. Radical environmentalists used direct action, from blockades and tree-sits to industrial sabotage, to save a wild nature that they believed to be in a state of crisis. Questioning the premises of liberal humanism, they subscribed to an ecocentric philosophy that attributed as much value to nature as to people. Although critics dismissed them as marginal, radicals posed a vital question that mainstream groups too often ignored: Is environmentalism a matter of common sense or a fundamental critique of the modern world?

In The Ecocentrists, Keith Makoto Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmental thought and action in the late-twentieth-century United States. Focusing especially on the group Earth First!, Woodhouse explores how radical environmentalism responded to both postwar affluence and a growing sense of physical limits. While radicals challenged the material and philosophical basis of industrial civilization, they glossed over the ways economic inequality and social difference defined people’s different relationships to the nonhuman world. Woodhouse discusses how such views increasingly set Earth First! at odds with movements focused on social justice and examines the implications of ecocentrism’s sweeping critique of human society for the future of environmental protection. A groundbreaking intellectual history of environmental politics in the United States, The Ecocentrists is a timely study that considers humanism and individualism in an environmental age and makes a case for skepticism and doubt in environmental thought.

Disenchanted with the mainstream environmental movement, a new, more radical kind of environmental activist emerged in the 1980s. Radical environmentalists used direct action, from blockades and...

Advance Praise

Woodhouse deftly brings together the intellectual history of the many threads of American environmentalism with the thinkers, the activists, the organizations, and the issues that have charged environmental politics since the 1960s. Required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the history of environmental activism and thought.

-James Morton Turner, Wellesley College

Woodhouse deftly brings together the intellectual history of the many threads of American environmentalism with the thinkers, the activists, the organizations, and the issues that have charged...

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9780231165884
PRICE	$37.00 (USD)
PAGES	384

Additional Information

Average rating from 7 members

See all member reviews

Featured Reviews

Cozy Book R, Reviewer

Thank you with gratitude to the publisher, author and Net Galley for the review copy. My opinion is my own.
As a long time environmentalist I was thrilled to receive this book for review. This is a book that one should take their time with as there is so much to learn here that you must absorb the reading. As you read this book you will want to conduct your own research with the author's recommendations on each area of interest. This book should be required reading in classrooms as its outstanding in depth and research.

As one who has worked with environment issues for decades, I found this to be the "Definitive" book on learning the history of environmentalism, the current climate and how to navigate advocacy for the various issues.

The author has exemplary research.

The Sierra Club is included with its history, the history and purpose of the Nature Conservancy Group, and of Greenpeace critical work for the oceans. The author documents how overpopulation, dam construction effects , water rights , clear cutting and oil drilling is affecting our planet. .

I was particularly interested in the portion devote to Redwood conservation and the fight to preserve these rare trees as corporate American fights to clear cut our forest. The tree canopy and the support of multiple species in the forest are covered here in detail.

The author includes advocates and their struggles and devotion to saving our environment. He documents how corporate America and politicians are approving destruction of our environment for sheer gain of profit and we are losing our water, waterways, deserts and ocean health and open spaces. it is most enlightening and should be read by everyone that has a interest in saving our planet .

A "Definitive" book on environmental activism and history. I recommend this quite highly. Thank you to the author for this exemplary body of work.

Was this review helpful?

Librarian 299542

Reader beware: This is an academic tome. However, I enjoyed it. As a young woman, I remember being in awe of Julia Butterfly Hill and this book takes a look at organizations and specific activists who put their money where their mouths are and take disruptive actions for the greater good. What I liked the most about this book is that it doesn't look at these ecocentric heroes through rose-colored glasses. What I mean is, that it addresses some of the missteps these entities have been criticized for.