David Pepper

Modern Environmentalism presents a comprehensive introduction to environmentalism, the origins of its main beliefs and ideas, and how these relate to modern environmental ideologies. Providing a historical overview of the development of attitudes to nature and the environment in society, the book examines key environmentalist ideas, influences and movements. Science's role in mediating our view of nature is emphasised throughout. This entirely new account draws on the explosion of writing on socio-environment relations since Pepper's earlier work, The Roots of Modern Environmentalism.

Modern Environmentalism presents a comprehensive introduction to environmentalism, the origins of its main beliefs and ideas, and how these relate to modern environmental ideologies. Providing a historical overview of the development of attitudes to nature and the environment in society, the book examines key environmentalist ideas, influences and movements. Science's role in mediating our view of nature is emphasised throughout. This entirely new account draws on the explosion of writing on socio-environment relations since Pepper's earlier work, The Roots of Modern Environmentalism.

First Published in 2004. Capitalism continues to degrade ecosystems and create social injustice. The 1992 Earth Summit demonstrated that the powerful vested interests behind Western capitalism have no intention of radically changing their goals and methods to help create an environmentally sound or socially just global society. In order to confront this, the green movement must now develop coherent eco-socialist politics. People must control their own lives and their relationship with the environment. Drawing on Marx, Morris, Kropotkin and anarcho-syndicalism, David Pepper presents an anthropocentric analysis of the way forward for green politics and environmental movements. Establishing the elements of a radical eco-socialism, this study rejects biocentrism, simplistic limits to growth and over-population theses, whilst exposing the deficiencies and contradictions of green approaches to post-modern politics and deep ecology. Eco-socialism should provide students of ecology, politics and the environment with a thorough introduction to the ideologies of Marxism, anarchism and deep ecology, and the ways these can be synthesized into a radical green politics.