Denaturalizing ecological politics : alienation from nature from Rousseau to the Frankfurt School and beyond / Andrew Biro.

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With Denaturalizing Ecological Politics , Andrew Biro has found a way of rescuing environmentalism from the ideological trap of naturalism.

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CHOICE Review

This book attempts to extend the dialogue between an environmental movement committed to defending" nature" and a postmodern movement committed to unmasking all the various ways in which the authority of nature is used ideologically. Environmentalists routinely claim that humans are despoiling nature. The claim rests implicitly on two assumptions: first, that "nature" and "human" can be readily distinguished, and second, that a "natural" way to live can be described and measured in a value-neutral manner. Biro (Acadia Univ., Canada) doubts both assumptions. The author argues that both human alienation from nature, and nature itself, must be understood as historical products subject to social construction. The author carefully analyzes the concepts of nature, and alienation from nature, in the works of Rousseau, Marx, Adorno, and Marcuse in an effort to shape them into tools usable for both movements. From these four theorists, Biro excavates a definition of alienation as a process whereby the natural environment and social relations are consciously transformed. An "emancipatory ecological politics" would thus not call for a return to nature but use nature normatively, as a model of minimal alienation against which the elaborate and real alienation of late capitalism can be critiqued and resisted. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty. J. Simeone Illinois Wesleyan University