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Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction by Paul Robbins. Blackwell Publishers, Maiden, MA, USA, and Oxford, UK, 2004, xxi + 242 pp., paper US$34.95 (ISBN 1405102667)
Paul Robbins has written a much-needed singleauthored text assessing the contributions of Political Ecology as an increasingly important approach to environmental research. Partly in answer to perceptions of the field as an incoherent body of critique, Robbins synthesises Political Ecology, highlighting its contributions to environmental scholarship and identifying an emerging consensus regarding the ways in which power and politics shape the human-environment relationship. In doing so, he draws on an impressive breadth of material and manages to synthesize it with the skill I have come to expect from his scholarship. He does not let Political Ecology off the hook, however, but maintains a healthy critique of it throughout the text, making for an engaging and important contribution to the field.
Robbins starts by tracing the history and emergence of Political Ecology, insisting that critical environmental scholarship has deep roots, stretching well before the oft-cited Blaikie and Brookfield (1987) or even Wolf (1972). He reviews contributing fields including risk hazards, cultural ecology, common property theory,...