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Radkau shows that this is not a single story of the steady ascent of environmentalism but rather a multiplicity of stories, each with its own dramatic tension: between single–issue movements and the challenges posed by the interconnection of environmental issues, between charismatic leaders and bureaucratic organizations, and between grassroot movements and global players. While the history can be traced back several centuries, environmentalism has flourished since the environmental revolution of 1970, spurred on by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 and the growing concern about global warming. While environmentalists often opposed the scientific mainstream, they were also often led by scientific knowledge. Environmentalism is the true Enlightenment of our time Ð so much so that we can call our era the age of ecology .
This timely and comprehensive global history of environmentalism will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the most pressing global issues of our time.
Preface to the English Edition vii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction: The Green Chameleon 1
One Environmentalism before the Environmental Movement 11
1 Good Mother Nature and the Appalling Wood Shortage : The Twin Face of Nature in the Decline of the Commons 11
2 Nature in Need of Protection and Nature as Healing Power: Environmental Activism in the Nervous Age 24
3 The Desert Threatens : Environmental Fears in the Age of Crisis the New Deal and Nazi Germany 46
4 Think Big! A Charismatic Intermezzo on the Olympian Heights 61
Two The Great Chain Reaction: The Ecological Revolution in and around 1970 79
Three Networked Thinking and Practical Priorities: An Endless Interplay 114
1 On the Ecology of Ecologism 121
2 Water and the Atom 137
3 Changing Priorities: The Movement in Motion 162
Four Charismatics and Ecocrats 182
1 Spiritual Quest and Charismatic Moments 182
2 Ten Heroines Embodying Tensions in the Movement 201
3 Institutionalization, Routinization, Revitalization 237
Five A Friend Enemy or Win–Win Scenario? 259
1 From Nuclear Power to the Spotted Owl 259
2 Violence and the Green Conscience 288
3 Ecology and Economics: The Challenge of Conceptual Analogy 320
Six Ecology and the Historic Turn of 1990: From Social Justice to Climate Justice? 339
Conclusion: The Dialectic of Green Enlightenment 425
Notes 432
Index 517
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J. Donald Hughes, University of Denver
"With his customary synoptic vision and idiosyncratic eye for telling detail, Radkau offers a revealing tableau of the multiple histories of modern environmentalism in Europe, in America, and around the world.The Age of Ecology is the most thought–provoking and wide–ranging book yet on its subject."
J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University
"A comprehensive and compelling global history of environmental movements.′
Die Zeit
"An authoritative global history of ecology."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
"Brilliant – by far the best account of the global environmental movement ... A great achievement."
Deutschlandradio Kultur
