Environment and Society

First published in 1994 and now reprinted with a new foreword updating the situation from the original edition Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict explores environmental problems - coherently and theoretically - from both a political and economic point of view. By illustrating the root causes of environmental disruption - global warming, soil depletion, desertification, water and air pollution - the authors show how to recognize and understand the complex contemporary problems involved in caring for the environment.

The book offers both a coherent perspective for solving ecological problems of all kinds and a systematic approach that shows how organizations, institutions and individuals can push for environmental protection reforms. In three sections Schnaiberg and Gould ask the questions: Why should we be concerned? How does environmental disorganization get created? What has been done? And, finally, what can be done?

"Allan Schnaiberg has been to environmental sociology what Talcott Parsons was to mid-century sociological theory: a person whose work was an obligatory point of departure. A candid, penetrating and critical assessment of many of the sacred cows of environmentalism and antienvironmentalism. This book is a most welcome addition to the literature in environmental sociology." Contemporary Sociology