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Jeff Shantz, Green Syndicalism: An Alternative Red/Green Vision New York, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0815633075.
In this thought provoking book's stated aim of revisiting the intersections between the radical ecology movement and the labour movement there is much to recom- mend: that the radical ecology movement needs to revisit the role of the working class in any future project of social transformation; that much radical ecology has thrown the baby of the working class out with the bathwater of failed socialism; and the notion that the working class, so used to living within their own economic and social limits, might be the social class best placed to lead a collective attempt to live within our planetary limits. Difficult to disagree with the first two; and the third is enticing.
And for Shantz, it is through the practice of syndicalism, as understood in its French and Spanish forms, that radical ecologists can re-envision their notions of the working class and bring this group into play in building a workable project of social and ecological transformation.
To test his central claim, Shantz gives us one major case study here: the work of Earth...