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Radical Ecology, by Carolyn Merchant. New York: Routledge, 1992. $49.95; paper, $14.95. Pp. xvii, 276.
Carolyn Merchant is known principally as the author of two landmark studies in ecological history and theory: The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (1980) and Ecological Revolution Nature, Gender and Science in New England (1989). In The Death of Nature Merchant provided a devastating critique of the mechanistic world view that originated with 17-century science. The mechanistic scientific outlook of such thinkers as Bacon, Descartes and Locke, she demonstrated, was intrinsically connected to the rise of capitalism, the death of the earlier organic world view, and the growing domination over women. In Ecological Revolutions she developed a general model of the interaction of production, reproduction and consciousness in the context of specific ecological revolutions, exploring in particular the colonial and capitalist ecological revolutions that took place in New England in the 17th through 19th centuries.
Radical Ecology, Merchant's third book on ecology, is a very different kind of work. Rather than resting on detailed historical research and aiming at theoretical synthesis, Radical Ecology is clearly intended as an introductory primer on the subject. The goal of the book is obviously not to criticize mainstream ecology nor to chart a course for radical ecology, but rather to explain the diversity of traditions that exist within the latter.
The result is a book that is extremely useful pedagogically, but limited in other respects. There is probably no better introduction currently available to the entire range of discourse within radical ecology. Yet, what is lacking is the full development of Merchant's own important ecosocial vision which would force the reader to choose among various strands within radical ecology, or to transcend them all in the form of a still more meaningful theory and practice. What...