From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century

by Buell; Frederick

• ISBN13: 9780415950404
• ISBN10: 0415950406
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-09-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

From Apocalypse to Way of Lifeis the most stirring, comprehensive account of the environmental crisis since Rachel Carson'sSilent Spring.In vivid prose, Frederick Buell illustrates the growing complexity of our ecological catastrophe as well as the suffocating political and cultural forces that blunt our response to it. In some quarters, the prophecies of doom have produced a Chicken Little syndrome: If the sky has not yet fallen, why should we believe it will? Buell counters with the hard facts about contemporary threats to human health--deforestation freshwater depletion, ocean pollution, biodiversity loss, synthetic hormones--while tracing the expressions of environmental apocalypse in popular culture. With passion and eloquence, From Apocalypse to Way of Life shows us the crisis that is staring us in the face, and explains why we can no longer see it.

Author Biography

Frederick Buell teaches English and Cultural Studies at Queens College/CUNY

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Preface: The Decade of Crisis	xi
Part I: Contesting Crisis
The Politics of Denial	3	(36)
Taking Crisis Seriously?	39	(34)
Part II: Elaborating Crisis
An Introductory Caution	69	(4)
Natures in Crisis, Part 1: An Inventory of the External World	73	(38)
Natures in Crisis, Part 2: Deepening Intimacy	111	(32)
Environmental Crisis as a Social Crisis	143	(34)
Crisis History: From Prophecy to Risk, from Apocalypse to Dwelling Place	177	(34)
Part III: Imagining Crisis
The Culture of Hyperexuberance	211	(36)
Representing Crisis: Environmental Crisis in Popular Fiction and Film	247	(38)
Taking Crisis Seriously: Environmental Crisis and Contemporary Literature	285	(38)
Appendix	323	(12)
Notes	335	(40)
Index	375