Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery
By Steve Nicholls
(University of Chicago Press, 524 pp., $30)
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
Edited by Bill McKibben
(Library of America, 1,047 pp., $40)
Defending The Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, And The Legacy Of Madison Grant
By Jonathan Peter Spiro
(University of Vermont Press, 462 pp., $39.95)
A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir
By Donald Worster
(Oxford University Press, 535 pp., $34.99)
A Reenchanted World: The Quest for A New Kinship With Nature
By James William Gibson
(Metropolitan Books, 306 pp., $27)
Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet
By Edward Humes
(Ecco Books, 367 pp., $25.99)
I.
In contemporary public discourse, concern for "the environment" is a mile wide and an inch deep. Even free-market fundamentalists strain to display their ecological credentials, while corporations that sell fossil fuels genuflect at the altar of sustainability. Everyone has discovered how nice it is to be green. Will popular sentiment translate into public policy? There is reason to be skeptical.
