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A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life),

A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

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A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt



A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

Ebook Download : A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

A provocative history of the environmental movement in America, showing how this rise to political and social prominence produced a culture of alarmism that has often distorted the factsFew issues today excite more passion or alarm than the specter of climate change. In A Climate of Crisis, historian Patrick Allitt shows that our present climate of crisis is far from exceptional. Indeed, the environmental debates of the last half century are defined by exaggeration and fearmongering from all sides, often at the expense of the facts. In a real sense, Allitt shows us, collective anxiety about widespread environmental danger began with the atomic bomb. As postwar suburbanization transformed the American landscape, more research and better tools for measurement began to reveal the consequences of economic success. A climate of anxiety became a climate of alarm, often at odds with reality. The sixties generation transformed environmentalism from a set of special interests into a mass movement. By the first Earth Day in 1970, journalists and politicians alike were urging major initiatives to remedy environmental harm. In fact, the work of the new Environmental Protection Agency and a series of clean air and water acts from a responsive Congress inaugurated a largely successful cleanup. Political polarization around environmental questions after 1980 had consequences that we still feel today. Since then, the general polarization of American politics has mirrored that of environmental politics, as pro-environmentalists and their critics attribute to one another the worst possible motives. Environmentalists see their critics as greedy special interest groups that show no conscience as they plunder the earth while skeptics see their adversaries as enemies of economic growth whose plans stifle initiative under an avalanche of bureaucratic regulation. There may be a germ of truth in both views, but more than a germ of falsehood too. America’s worst environmental problems have proven to be manageable; the regulations and cleanups of the last sixty years have often worked, and science and technology have continued to improve industrial efficiency. Our present situation is serious, argues Allitt, but it is far from hopeless. Sweeping and provocative, A Climate of Crisis challenges our basic assumptions about the environment, no matter where we fall along the spectrum—reminding us that the answers to our most pressing questions are sometimes found in understanding the past.

A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #892607 in Books
  • Brand: Allitt, Patrick
  • Published on: 2015-03-31
  • Released on: 2015-03-31
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 8.40" h x .83" w x 5.44" l, 1.00 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 400 pages
A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

From Booklist Our worries over climate change can be traced back to worries about the impact of the atomic bomb, argues Allitt. The same paradox of nuclear weapons—technology so extraordinarily powerful that its success provokes fear—is seen in industrial advancements that have led to worries about the environment. But the same technological or industrial advancement that produces the nuclear fears or environmental threats also makes it possible to detect and measure the threats and find solutions. The problem is exaggeration and fearmongering by groups that have led to mass movements, strident media coverage, and tightened regulations. Offering historical perspective on the tensions between industrialism, wealth-building, and environmentalism, Allitt traces social movements of the 1960s through the creation of Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency. Pondering the trade-offs of advancement and economic success vis-á-vis increasing polarization of industrialists and environmentalists, Allitt attempts to balance assumptions about who the good and bad guys are in the drama of the climate crisis and whether the crisis even exists. --Vanessa Bush

Review The Wall Street Journal:“In recounting partisan battles, Mr. Allitt’s objectivity is refreshing…His critique of the relentless crisis mentality will lead many environmentalists to dismiss the book as anti-environmental, while anti-environmentalists will object to his conclusion that much conservation has been achieved at little cost to ordinary Americans."The Weekly Standard: “A book that deserves widespread readership and course adoption…The virtue of Allitt’s history is a fresh approach to familiar themes and controversies, and from a perspective only occasionally brought to bear on the subject…He gets the larger story right…Allitt’s wide-gauge historical approach is a valuable complement to the many scientific and policy critiques that have piled up over the years.”Martin V. Melosi, author of The Sanitary City and Precious Commodity:“In this sweeping study, Patrick Allitt covers every conceivable major character and event in the modern ‘age of environmentalism.’ The book is grounded in intellectual history, and seeks to find balance in interpreting the role of environmental advocates and naysayers, in successes and failures of governmental regulation, in objectives and outcomes. The tone is definitely optimistic about the long view of meeting environmental challenges in the United States. At the same time, in linking past to present, Allitt offers caution about what might unfold in the days to come. Above all else, he touts the value of history in assessing America’s complex environmental legacy.”Adam Rome, author of The Genius of Earth Day:“I don’t agree with everything in A Climate of Crisis, but Patrick Allitt’s well-written and provocative book has given me more to think about than any other history of the U.S. environmental movement. A Climate of Crisis is both bracing and exciting.”

About the Author Patrick Allitt is the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, where he has taught since 1988. He was an undergraduate at Oxford and a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Princeton University. The author of six books, he is also the presenter of eight lecture series with “The Great Courses,” including “The Art of Teaching.”


A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

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Most helpful customer reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. What I like about this book is the array of topics he ... By Judy B What I like about this book is the array of topics he covers. Some of them VERY fitting but not always considered in this discussion. YEAH! Thank you for thinking beyond the box.I think this is a great book to get ideas, understandings and points of view from. I don't always agree.. and sometimes am not sure what the authors view is VS what he is sharing... and maybe that is OK. I felt like I left it needing to know a bit more at times. He does cover things differently and tell different stories and view points than other books that I have read that are similar and that was nice.Though I felt at times I was wanting more I also feel as if he does seem to share a more well rounded picture... some philosophy... some science, etc. Facts as well as a base to hang them on historically that is thought provoking.A good read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great Survey of Environmentalism By charles peterson This book provides an excellent and very readable survey of environmentalism over the last 50+ years. It will undoubtably be rebuked by extremists on both sides of the various issues, but I felt the author gave both sides a fair hearing. My takeaway is that no one really knows the truth about most environmental issues. The pessimists from Malthus forward have frequently been proved wrong as new technologies and general public opinion solved many of their feared problems. On the flip side, the world is a much better place thanks to realistic environmentalism. This topic is full of fear mongering and hyperbole from both extreme camps. The trick is to find responsible leaders in both business and in government who can attack the problems without wrecking the world's economy for everyone.

12 of 19 people found the following review helpful. AUTHOR PATRICK ALLITT MEETS THE DEMANDS OF A MOST DEMANDING SUBJECT By Eric Burns To write a book of this scope, defining A Climate of Crisis as broadly as does Professor Allitt, is remarkable in itself. To write such a book thoughtfully, fairly, and with such clarity of expression, is to make the book invaluable. So much so, in fact, that one might begin to regard with suspicion those who preach their climatalogical sermons without having read the book.But if it is a book that begs reading, it is also one that defies easy summary. "Environmentalism," a word that appears in the sub-title, is a broad term, and Professor Allitt pays due respect to its breadth, discussing everything from global warming to the raising of McDonald's french fries, from airborne carcinogens to disease-laden waters, from endangered species, to species that ought to be endangered; i.e., the politicians and lobbyists who use crucial environmental issues for their own ideological or financial gain.I assume that the author hopes for financial gain from A Climate of Crisis. But ideology plays no part at all in the book. Professor Allitt informs the reader of his general point of view in the first pages: that although the world has suffered and will continue to suffer environmental disasters, many are overrated and misunderstood by a populace that depends on special interests and sensationalizing journalists for its news. And the effects of even the most disastrous of environmental occurrences are often reversible. Lake Erie, once dead, is now alive; the fish caught there are safe to eat. The lake has not just been cleansed; it has been resurrected.How did it happen? A paradox at the heart of the author's volume is that although heavily-industrialized nations, like the United States, are more likely than third-world countries to be subject to outbreaks of pollution, the wealth created by industrialized nations makes them more likely to develop solutions to environmental crises, to rid themselves of, or at least greatly reduce, their threats. If, that is, the government and journalists do their jobs. Neither did their jobs in the old Soviet Union, and as a result the new Russia is something bordering on a toxic wasteland. Professsor Allitt's description of today's Russia is both chilling and instructive.Oh, and those pristine third world countries that are not plagued by industrialization? They can be just as severely plagued by nature. Professor Allitt has done his research as thoroughly as is demanded by his topic.And, to repeat, for it is the book's most shining attribute, he has presented some of the most important issues that the world confronts these days so clearly that the reader cannot help but rue the fact that he was not so superbly informed earlier.

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A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt
A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (Penguin History of American Life), by Patrick Allitt

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