Environment and Social Theory (Routledge Introductions to Environment S.)

While the environment has been a perennial theme in human thought, it is clear that the present human generation is faced with a series of unprecedented environmental dilemmas, which have ensured that the environment and how we value, use and think about it, has become increasingly central and important in recent social theory.

A wide ranging introduction to the ways in which the environment has been used and abused, constructed and contested within social theory, this revised second edition contains new and updated material in every chapter, including:

• a greater discussion of the Frankfurt school/critical theory
• a new chapter on Left and Right-wing theoretical reactions to environmental crisis and politics
• expanded coverage of ecological economics
• new sections on risk, trust and technology and critiques of the risk society.

Investigating the environment within the history of social theory, Barry examines gender, the environment and economic thought, risk society and postmodern approaches to the environment, and green social theory. Broad in scope, this text provides the student with an indispensable guide to the way in which the environment and social theory relate to one another.