Beauty, Health, and Permanence
Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–1985

This book explores political controversy to shed light on the working of political institutions and to establish their relationship to social change.

Samuel P. Hays (Author)

9780521389280, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 August 1989

648 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 3.1 cm, 0.88 kg

"Using the environmental movement as a case study, Samuel Hays looks at the way in which values emerge, are articulated in the public arena, come into conflict with established systems of production and governance, change the system, and are changed by it. Here are the considered thoughts of an excellent historian on major changes in postwar America and, as such, essential reading for anyone interested in the period." Pacific Historical Review

Bringing together a wide range of environmental issues that have been debated since the mid-1950s, this book views these issues as a result of changes in values in American society since World War II. The author explores such substantive issues as pollution, natural lands, chemical carcinogens, and population-resources balances. He examines the politics of environmental science, economic analysis, planning, and management, and traces the impact of environmental issues on local, state, and federal government. The book explores political controversy to shed light on the working of political institutions and to establish their relationship to social change.

Preface
Introduction: Environmental Politics - the New and the Old
1. From conservation to environment
2. Variation and pattern in the environmental impulse
3. The urban environment
4. The nation's wildlands
5. The countryside: A land rediscovered, yet threatened
6. The toxic environment
7. Population, resources, and the limits to growth
8. Environmental inquiry and ideas
9. The environmental opposition
10. The politics of science
11. The politics of economic analysis and planning
12. The middle ground: Management of environmental restraint
13. Environmental politics in the States
14. The politics of legislation, administration, and litigation
15. The Reagan antienvironmental revolution
16. Environmental society and environmental politics
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], History of the Americas [HBJK]