From Apocalypse to Way of Life

Environmental Crisis in the American Century

By Frederick Buell

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About the Book

The first Green Wave of the 1960s created a flood of apocalyptic visions in literature and film, from The Population Bomb to Soylent Green, along with a torrent of political activism that launched Earth Day and the Green Party. Today, even as we more fully apprehend the dimensions of our planet's decay, we have become perversely accustomed to the sword that hangs over us.
From Apocalypse to Way of Life is the most stirring, comprehensive account of the environmental crisis since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. In vivid prose, Frederick Buell illustrates the growing complexity of our ecological catastrophe as well as the suffocating political and cultural forces that blunt our response to it.
In some quarters, the prophecies of doom have produced a Chicken Little syndrome: If the sky has not yet fallen, why should we believe it will? Buell counters with the hard facts about contemporary threats to human health--deforestation freshwater depletion, ocean pollution, biodiversity loss, synthetic hormones--while tracing the expressions of environmental apocalypse in popular culture.
With passion and eloquence, From Apocalypse to Way of Life shows us the crisis that is staring us in the face, and explains why we can no longer see it.

Reviews

'Outstanding... an important book.' - Andy McLaughlin, author of Regarding Nature

'This is one of the best books I have read on environmental politics in a long, long time.' - John Barry, author of The Environment and Social Theory

'This is a fascinating book: a must-read for anyone anywhere who needs a good explanation of the environmental crisis we have learned to inhabit.' - Local Environment

About the Author(s)

Frederick Buell teaches English and cultural studies at Queens College/CUNY. He is the author of National Culture and the New Global System and W.H. Auden as a Social Poet. He has also published a collection of poetry, Full Summer.