Environmental Discourse and Practice A Reader

by Benton, Lisa M.; Short, John Rennie

• ISBN13: 9780631211143
• ISBN10: 0631211144
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-18
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This book provides an introduction to the broad relationship between people and environments, the emergence of environmental thought and practice and the importance of environmental ideas in wider social and political discourses. The authors introduce the concept of environmental discourses - explanations of the world around us - to help readers understand why human-environmental relationships take on the forms that they do. The book provides an historical grounding in environmental thought, an appreciation of current concerns and an understanding of why environmental issues are linked with some of the most important contemporary social movements. The authors demonstrate that the environment is as much a social construct as it is a physical presence. They highlight the social production of space, place and the environment and argue that the environment is partly a product of social institutions and plays an active role in cultural representation, political discourse and national identity. Environmental Discourse and Practice provides students with an essential introduction to environmental studies, history and ethics from a critical social science perspective.

Author Biography

Lisa M. Benton teaches Geography and Environmental Studies at Colgate University. She is the author of The Presidio: From Army Post to National Park (1998) and numerous articles in such journals as Environmental Ethics, Environment and Planning and Urban Geography.

John Rennie Short is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University. Amongst his publications are The Humane City (1989), Imagined Country (1991), Human Settlement (1993) The Urban Order (1996), New Worlds, New Geographies (1998) and Representing the Republic (1999).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	x
List of Tables	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
Part I: Environmental Discourses in History	9	(100)
Imagining a New World	11	(16)
A New World	11	(1)
A Dynamic World	12	(1)
The First Settlers	13	(5)
The Pristine Myth and the Demographic Holocaust	18	(1)
The Ties That Bind	19	(2)
The Invented Indian	21	(2)
The Ecological Indian	23	(4)
Colonial Encounters	27	(17)
Competing Empires	27	(9)
Rivalry, Alliances, and Contact	36	(4)
The Environmental Impacts	40	(4)
From Colony to Empire	44	(16)
The Empire Takes Shape	45	(2)
The Practice of Territorial Expansion	47	(5)
The Ecology of Territorial Expansion	52	(3)