Logic of Environmentalism

Vassos Argyrou lectures in Social Anthropology at the University of Hull. His research interests include social and cultural theory, poststructuralism and postcolonialism and southern Europe. Publications include Tradition and Modernity in the Mediterranean (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique (Pluto Press 2002).

• PreludeChapter 1. First Change‘The Idea of Nature’‘If we have no rivers, we make canals’‘Europeans are devotees of power’‘The Leap Across the Centuries’Chapter 2. Second Change‘Only One Earth’‘This Sacred Earth’‘Our Debt to the Savage’Chapter 3. The Logic of the SameThe Phenomenology of Change‘The Age of the World Picture’Pure HumanityChapter 4. ‘Beyond Humanism’: and further to the other side‘The Religion of Humanity’, the Religion of Gaia and other HomologiesPure BeingChapter 5. No ChangeOn HegemonyThe Double BindBibliographyIndex

“…a fascinating journey through the European understanding of ‘nature’ as opposed to ‘humanism’…and interesting and provocative volume.”  ·   Journal of Biosocial Science“…a powerful critique of contemporary environmentalism, and the anthropology that supports it.”  ·  Human Ecology“Argyrou’s compelling argument has important implications for the future of conservation and development…the new ‘facts’ of environmentalism are no more objective or true than the old facts of modernism.”  ·  American Anthropologist“This is…potentially an important book.”  ·  Environmental Politics