Customer Reviews

Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology

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Regardless of whether you are interested in deep ecology, animal rights, envirnmental ethics,eco-feminism or political ecology, this excellently edited edition will have something of interest for you. Those who are looking for a more scientific approach to examing our relationship with nature, as oppossed to the more philosophical writings of Muir, Thoreau and Abbey, this book will be especially appreciated.
Published primarily for use in environmetal philosophy/science courses at the university level, this book is very useful in providing a well researched, diversen sampling from some of the most important theorists in the field. Essays by J. Baird Calicott, Tom Regan, author of the revolutionary work "The Case Animal Rights", Holmes Rolston III, author of the seminal text "Environmetal Ethics", the Norweigan philosopher Arne Naess and , the so-called founder of the deep Ecology movement, Aldo Leopold, author of the famous "Sand County Almanac", as well as works by other important scholars such as George Sessions, Warick Fox, the famous eco-feminist historian Carolyn Merchant, John Clark and Gary Snyder along with many others.
Although the essays contianed in this text can be challenging at times, in the end the payoff definitely makes it worth the effort. This difficulty is, at least, in part due to the fact that what this book requires is a new way of examining our relationship with nature and a willingness to examine problems from a more holistic perspective, which can sometimes be a hard thing for those taught that the world is here simply for man's exploitation (gender specificity intended). This volume is particularly effective in giving students a well-rounded introduction to many of the most important issues in environmental writing today. As the seriousness of our ecological problems persist and even worsen, this book will continue to be a highly informative source of information for students and instructors for years to come.

I'm convinced this is the best way to learn about Environmental Philosophy! While some sections are difficult and can bog you down, most are clear and well-written.

I'd recommend this book as both a teaching tool and as something you can pick up to learn on your own. It's more difficult than most pleasure reading but the subject is particurarily heavy.

This kind of education is essential to the environmentalist or someone trying to understand the movement.

The book is essentially what you'd see as a reader for an environmental philosophy class. The editor does a good job -trying- to distinguish between the different views each author has on particular elements, but at some points he sort of gives into the chaos and just makes it clear that things are quite complex. It would not have been difficult to make some tables regarding who stands where on what issues in what contexts - this is the type of orientation that students really need.

The content itself is valuable, and I'm glad to have been exposed to it. However, this is essentially just a nicely produced reader, with many essays decades old, and I'd have been just as happy with a 5th hand, coffee stained copy from some free pile . . . or even finding the articles online.

I'm pretty mad at this book, and I don't really get mad. First, the spine began to crack and peel away while reading first chapter - the kind of thing where the sections of pages start coming apart, opening the spine even more for more sections to get free. THIS SUCKS. I had to try taping the thing up, which didn't help much, and only opening the book half way while reading; if I had pushed the book open flat onto a table the whole spine would certainly have cracked. Second, this text has no index. No index. I've worked with a publisher before and there is software that will generate an index based on certain types of words meeting certain thresholds - it's not labor intensive anymore. The audience for this text is university students who NEED to be able to find key ideas/authors/events quickly. If this were a $15 paperback, which it should be, I wouldn't be complaining. I paid $70 for this book, which is essentially a reader, which fell apart while carefully reading it, and I had to create my own index by hand!

I really suggest you find some way to avoid paying for this text!

Correct item shipped expeditiously with great follow up. You are a wonderful asset to this community.

Kind regards

Bazyli

** GREAT BOOK **

This book was assigned reading for a college class on Sustainable Development. I'd already had some exposure to the philosophies & theories presented. It seems to be a good collection representing a wide range of ideas; a great piece for my reference shelf. In other words: a keeper!

....ably assembled and edited by Michael E. Zimmerman. This anthology spans the spectrum from animal rights to environmental protection to deep ecology, and by doing so provides a superb introduction to environmental studies as well as important supplementary reading reaching forward into the present.