Book Review

In the past three decades the environmental movement in the United States and around the world has succeeded in placing environmental issues firmly within the local, state, national, and international political discourse. An ecological culture is emerging, Andrew Jamison argues, but "concern for protecting the environment has been both privatized and commercialized" (p. 144). How the many strands of environmentalism have contributed to this development over the past thirty-five years is the subject of this intriguing book.	1
As Jamison explains, this book grew out of his personal journey as both an environmental activist and as a student of environmental politics and science and technology studies. His experiences as a scholar and activist led him to wonder whether the gap between the theory and practice of environmentalism that seemed to grow ever wider from the 1960s to the 1990s could be bridged. Jamison explains how this chasm has grown as "the 'knowledge interests' that had developed within environmental movements ... have increasingly left the movement space behind" (p. 8). That is, he wants to show how green knowledge has become institutionalized in bureaucratic culture, economic culture, civic culture, and academic culture, each of which seeks to generate and use green knowledge in ways that are not always compatible.	2
Jamison's central argument is that "the political quest for sustainable development is best thought of as an ongoing series of cultural transformations by which the visionary ideas and utopian practices of the environmental movement are working their way into the social lifeblood" (p. 45). He devotes most of two chapters to elucidating how the alternative priorities of past social movements—from the scientist movement of seventeenth century Europe to the regionalist movement of 1920's America—have been incorporated into the mainstream.	3
A similar fate, he argues, has befallen the environmental movement. Whereas the precepts of environmentalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s constituted a radical critique of modern society, so-called "green" business practices and public policy that purport to be a kind of "ecological modernization" are now considered de rigueur. "Sustainable development" has become a catchphrase that flies comfortably from the lips of even conservative politicians. In response, new forms of social critique have emerged, often combining environmental concerns with those of social justice. In order for an ecological culture to continue emerging, Jamison contends, the various producers of green knowledge need to interact rather than compete, as they often have in recent years. There need to be more networks that bring together civil servants, local activists, academics, and people who work for large environmental organizations.	4
As the foregoing overview suggests, environmental historians will find few new insights in Jamison's historical interpretation of the development of environmental movements and politics in the United States during the past forty years. Samuel Hays and Robert Gottleib, for example, each have covered the same terrain more thoroughly. Jamison does, however, fruitfully compare the environmental movement in the United States with that in other countries, notably, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Moreover, it would be unfair to judge this book on its merits as historical scholarship alone. This is a study of politics, social movements, business practices, institutional and personal activism, and, above all, the author's involvement with environmentalism over the past three decades. Jamison's experiences as an academic, a consultant, and activist, and as long-term resident in several different national cultures have given him a unique perspective on his subject, a perspective many readers will find both refreshing and hopeful.	5
Reviewed by Michael B. Smith, an assistant professor of history at Ithaca College. He recently received his Ph.D. from Indiana University after completing his dissertation on the history of the summer camp movement in the United States.

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.