The Sociology of the Environment

In The Sociology of the Environment, Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate have brought together a diverse collection of writings from within the human sciences. These papers chart the progress which sociology has made in addressing the environment. Although they are not all written by sociologists, they do illuminate a number of largely unresolved issues for sociology, which mark important departures for the discipline and which necessitate a radical rethink of inherited assumptions.

The readings are organized under a number of different themes, ranging from the theoretical foundations of the discipline to post-industrial Utopianism. Other areas covered include Marxism and the environment, neo-Malthusianism and environmental determination, biocentric theories, radical ecology, scientific enquiry and the environment, international perspection, and social movement and the environment. The editors conclude that sociology still has much to do in rising to the challenge of interpreting environmental change, indicating that this must be done by forging relationships with other disciplines, in which the contribution that sociology can make is underlined rather than lost.