Humanity and nature : ecology, science, and society

Analyzes the relations of humanity to nature from the different perspectives of ecological science and the environmental movement. The authors argue that the ecology movement is a mass of contradictions and is in part paralyzed by turning to the past in search of a lost paradise, a state when humanity and nature were "in balance". The social history of nature and the natural history of humanity are analyzed from the mutually supporting viewpoints of environmental movements and ecological science. Environmental movements can be successful only if they adopt the political perspective of human liberation, and the science of ecology needs to unite the concerns of the science with those of the movement.