A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States

A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States PDF

Author: Chad Montrie

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2011-10-06

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0826455727

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This book offers a fresh and innovative account of the history of environmentalism in the United States, challenging the dominant narrative in the field. In the widely-held version of events, the US environmental movement was born with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 and was driven by the increased leisure and wealth of an educated middle class. Chad Montrie's telling moves the origins of environmentalism much further back in time and attributes the growth of environmental awareness to working people and their families. From the antebellum era to the end of the twentieth century, ordinary Americans have been at the forefront of organizing to save themselves and their communities from environmental harm. This interpretation is nothing short of a substantial recasting of the past, giving a more accurate picture of what happened, when, and why at the beginnings of the environmental movement.

The Greening of a Nation?

The Greening of a Nation? PDF

Author: Hal Rothman

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Company

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13:

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The first balanced look at the evolution and significance of environmentalism, THE GREENING OF A NATION demonstrates the many attitudes Americans have held toward nature, as well as how these attitudes have created the social and cultural concerns of the post-1945 era. The text synthesizes the many facets of environmentalism in an even-handed manner, showing both the triumphs and shortcomings of the concept.

American Environmentalism

American Environmentalism PDF

Author: Riley E. Dunlap

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 9780844817309

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First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Environmentalism in the United States

Environmentalism in the United States PDF

Author: Elizabeth Bomberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1317996143

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Environmentalism – defined here as activism aimed at protecting the environment or improving its condition – is undergoing significant change in the United States. Under attack from the current administration and direct questioning from its own ranks, environmentalism in the US is at a crossroads. This special issue will explore the changing patterns of and challenges to environmentalism in the contemporary US. More specifically, it will examine the following dynamics: · the re-conceptualisation of core ideas and strategies defining US environmentalism; · questions of identity and relations with other advocacy groups (including labour, global justice and women’s groups); · institutional change (especially the shift away from regulatory policies and approaches); · the expanding arenas of activism, to both above and below the state; · environmentalists’ response to Bush administration policies and priorities. This book was previously published as a special issue of Environmental Politics.

Green States and Social Movements

Green States and Social Movements PDF

Author: John S. Dryzek

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-02-20

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0191530301

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Social movements take shape in relation to the kind of state they face, while over time states are transformed by the movements that they both incorporate and resist. Green States and Social Movements is a comparative study of the environmental movement's successes and failures in four very different states: the USA, UK, Germany and Norway. The history covers the entire sweep of the modern environmental era that begins in 1970. The end in view is a green transformation of the state and society on a par with earlier transformations that gave us first the liberal capitalist state and then the welfare state. The authors explain why such a transformation is now most likely in Germany, and why it is least likely in the United States, which has lost the status of environmental pioneer that it gained in the early 1970s. Their comparative analysis also explains the role played by social movements in making modern societies more deeply democratic, and yields insights into the strategic choices of environmental movements as they decide on what terms to engage, enter or resist the state. Sometimes it makes sense for a movement to act conventionally, as a green party or set of interest groups. But sometimes inclusion can mean co-optation, in which case a movement can instead emphasize action in and through civil society.

The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s

The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s PDF

Author: Dorceta E. Taylor

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2009-11-23

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 0822392240

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In The Environment and the People in American Cities, Dorceta E. Taylor provides an in-depth examination of the development of urban environments, and urban environmentalism, in the United States. Taylor focuses on the evolution of the city, the emergence of elite reformers, the framing of environmental problems, and the perceptions of and responses to breakdowns in social order, from the seventeenth century through the twentieth. She demonstrates how social inequalities repeatedly informed the adjudication of questions related to health, safety, and land access and use. While many accounts of environmental history begin and end with wildlife and wilderness, Taylor shows that the city offers important clues to understanding the evolution of American environmental activism. Taylor traces the progression of several major thrusts in urban environmental activism, including the alleviation of poverty; sanitary reform and public health; safe, affordable, and adequate housing; parks, playgrounds, and open space; occupational health and safety; consumer protection (food and product safety); and land use and urban planning. At the same time, she presents a historical analysis of the ways race, class, and gender shaped experiences and perceptions of the environment as well as environmental activism and the construction of environmental discourses. Throughout her analysis, Taylor illuminates connections between the social and environmental conflicts of the past and those of the present. She describes the displacement of people of color for the production of natural open space for the white and wealthy, the close proximity between garbage and communities of color in early America, the cozy relationship between middle-class environmentalists and the business community, and the continuous resistance against environmental inequalities on the part of ordinary residents from marginal communities.

Making a Living

Making a Living PDF

Author: Chad Montrie

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0807831972

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In an innovative fusion of labor and environmental history, Making a Living examines work as a central part of Americans' evolving relationship with nature, revealing the unexpected connections between the fight for workers' rights and the rise of

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor PDF

Author: Rob Nixon

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 067424799X

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The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of "slow violence" to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode. In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective PDF

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-04-12

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0309264146

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The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.