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by: Mark Dowie  Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 577 EAN: 9780262540841 ISBN: 0262540843 Label: The MIT Press Manufacturer: The MIT Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 336 Publication Date: August 01, 1996 Publisher: The MIT Press Studio: The MIT Press Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: "Losing Ground is an ambitious and brave book. Mr. Dowie has marshaled an exceptionally broad array of facts and produced a provocative explanation for why a once vibrant social movement is flagging....one of the truly important books on a genuinely American social movement." -- Keith Schneider, New York Times Book Review "Perhaps the most interesting environmental book published yet this year." -- The Washington Times A recent history replete with compromise and capitulation has pushed a once promising and effective political movement to the brink of irrelevance. So states Mark Dowie in this provocative critique of the mainstream American environmental movement. Dowie, the prolific award-winning journalist who broke the stories on the Dalkon Shield and on the Ford Pinto, delivers an insightful, informative, and often damning account of the movement many historians and social commentators at one time expected to be this century's most significant. He unveils the inside stories behind American environmentalism's undeniable triumphs and its quite unnecessary failures. Dowie weaves a spellbinding tale, from the movement's conservationist origins as a handful of rich white men's hunting and fishing clubs, through its evolution in the 1960s and 1970s into a powerful political force that forged landmark environmental legislation, enforced with aggressive litigation, to the strategy of "third wave" political accommodation during the Reagan and Bush years that led to the evisceration of many earlier triumphs, up to today, where the first stirrings of a rejuvenated, angry, multicultural, and decidedly impolite movement for environmental justice provides new hope for the future. Dowie takes a fresh look at the formation of the American environmental imagination and examines its historical imperatives: the inspirations of Thoreau, the initiatives of John Muir and Bob Marshall, the enormous impact of Rachel Carson, the new ground broken by Earth Day in 1970, and the societal antagonists created in response that climaxed with the election of Ronald Reagan. He details the subsequent move toward polite, ineffectual activism by the mainstream environmental groups, characterized by successful fundraising efforts and wide public acceptance, and also by new alliances with corporate philanthropists and government bureaucrats, increased degradation of environmental quality, and alienation of grassroots support. Dowie concludes with an inspirational description of a noncompromising "fourth wave" of American environmentalism, which he predicts will crest early in the next century. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - What goes around, comes around.Although this book is now 7 years old, it seems more relevant today than when Dowie wrote it. I keep hoping for a new, revised, edition. The elections of 2000 and 2002 have shown that the mainstream environmental organizations in the U.S. have lost most of their strength in the political arena. Despite major attempts to influence elections. . .the Senatorial race in Colorado for example. . .their efforts were either not effective or salient to the electorate. The Green Party seems to have filtered ... Read More Rating: - A good history of American environmentalismI havn't read much about the history of environmentalism so when I saw this at a used bookstore I decided to pick it up. It gave a very good overview about how environmentalism progressed throughout the 20th century and the different groups involved. At the end the author gives his theory about where the environmental movement is heading in the future. Overall I would recommend it to anyone interested in environmental politics and the movement in general. Rating:  - Good PointsI think Mark Dowie did a great job showing some problems of today. Even though I feel this book was meant to be read in the mid-1990s, Dowie's points are still valid. Dowie also showed how different groups that call themselves *environmentalists* have different areas of concern (not all are out to save the "cute fuzzy animals," but have other important concerns/issues). Rating: - Critique of mainstream's blindsiding of the environment.Perhaps the greatest weakness of individual environmentalists and the environmental "movement" is the absence of public self-examination. While political insiders may clearly see the difference between the National Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club, the public has few resources to gauge them. Opening the doors is author Mark Dowie, a champion of local activism and the integration of environmental issues with other social movements. Tracing the origins and bureaucratization of the environmental ... Read More Rating: - Critique of mainstream's blindsiding of the environment.Perhaps the greatest weakness of individual environmentalists and the environmental "movement" is the absence of public self-examination. While political insiders may clearly see the difference between the National Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club, the public has few resources to gauge them. Opening the doors is author Mark Dowie, a champion of local activism and the integration of environmental issues with other social movements. Tracing ... Read More 
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