Introduction
I. History and Nature
Introduction to Part I
1. Culture, Nature, and the Materialist Conception of History
2. What Is Environmental History? Why Environmental History?
3. Three Ways to Look at the Ecological History and Cultural
Landscapes of Monterey Bay
4. The Nature of Construction and the Construction of Nature at
Fall Creek, Felton, California, 1860 1990: A Script
5. The Sales of Two Cities: Chicago and Los Angeles
II. Capitalism and Nature
Introduction to Part II
6. Some Observations on Ecological Crisis
7. The Conditions of Production and the Production of
Conditions
8. The Second Contradiction of Capitalism, with an Addendum on the
Two Contradictions of Capitalism
9. On Capitalist Accumulation and Economic and Ecological
Crisis
10. Uneven and Combined Development and Ecological Crisis
11. Technology and Ecology
12. Murder on the Orient Express: The Political Economy of the Gulf
War
13. British Rule in Shetland
14. Is Sustainable Capitalism Possible?
III. Socialism and Nature
Introduction to Part III
15. Socialism and Ecology
16. A Red Green Politics in the United States?
17. Flatland Politics
18. Think Globally, Act Locally? Toward an International Red-Green
Movement
19. Ecology Movements and the State
20. The New Global Economy and One Alternative
21. What Is Ecological Socialism?
James O'Connor, PhD, is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology, and Director of the Center for Political Ecology in Santa Cruz, California. He is retired from teaching sociology, economics, and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
James O'Connor's work is distinctive in that it constitutes the
first fully developed, concrete analysis of how the undermining of
the environment is actually undermining the conditions of
production of the global capitalist society in which we live,
threatening the very process of capital accumulation that lies at
the heart of the modern world economy.... Brilliantly argued,
O'Connor's work constitutes the indispensable starting point for a
consideration of the interrelationship of socioeconomic and
environmental crises in our time, and will be of immense interest
to readers coming from a wide variety of perspectives. Readers of
this volume will discover a rich body of work delving into a wide
range of environmental problems, from environmental justice, to the
Gulf War, to 'What is Ecological Socialism?'. This is a
treasure-trove of environmental thought by one of the great social
theorists of our day. --John Bellamy Foster, Co-Editor,
Organization & Environment; author of The Vulnerable Planet: A
Short Economic History of the Environment
The neo-liberal pundits who dance on Marx's grave will hate this
book. Whether exposing the hidden logic of the Gulf War or
deciphering the relations of production in a new-growth forest,
Natural Causes is an intellectual tour de force. James O'Connor,
once again, demonstrates that he is America's most original social
theorist. --Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz and Ecology of
Fear
The good news is that the environmental and socialist movements are
beginning to create a dialogue, which can immeasurably strengthen
both. James O'Connor has been one of the country's leading
intellectual figures in that dialogue, and his new book shows, in a
compelling, sophisticated way, how both movements must come
together. --Donald Worster, Hall Distinguished Professor of
American History, University of Kansas
- Provocative....The book should help dispel suspicions that the
post-1989 green turn of many socialists was opportunistic.
Recommended for graduate students and faculty. --Choice,
12/21/1997ƒƒ College-level students of Marxist theory will welcome
a coverage which links business and political policies with issues
of environmental and social change. Complex and revealing, backed
with many source material facts. --The Midwest Book Review,
12/21/1997
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