Description: We often think of environmentalists as people who want "to save the Earth" from pollution and waste, but what this means on a dynamic planet can be difficult to pin down. Here, Leslie Paul Thiele provides a much-needed clarification and expansion of the goals of the environmental movement. Focusing on America, he traces the history of the movement over the last hundred years, identifying four successive waves of environmental thought. The first and longest wave, from the mid-1800s through the 1960s, was primarily concerned with conservation. The next wave worked toward the containment of our impact on the environment, which was soon followed by co-optation, as the mass environmental movement grew and drifted into the mainstream. Most of the book is then devoted to the fourth and current wave, coevolution, which is characterized by an emphasis on the interdependence of humans and the environment and by a push for substantial political, and economic changes. With an eye toward sustainable living across the globe, these environmentalists stress that human culture is part of a complex and evolving global system. The author shows how the goals of this latest wave are likely to be central concerns for the next century.

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