Main entry:

Bess, Michael.

Title & Author:

The light-green society : ecology and technological modernity in France, 1960-2000 / Michael Bess.

Publication:

Description:

xix, 369 pages ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-361) and index.
The Postwar Acceleration -- Nukes, Concordes, and Anxiety: The French "Special Relationship" with High Technology -- Ambivalent Modernity -- Europe's Nuclear Macho? Perceptions of France as a Relatively "Ungreen" Nation -- The Postwar Boom: Continuity vs. Discontinuity -- Technological Darwinism -- The Great Renewal -- Machine/Symbol: The Concorde -- The Role of Nuclear Technology within the National Discourse of Anxiety -- French Perceptions of the Rainbow Warrior Affair -- Endangered Species: The French Peasant -- The Rural Future: A Key Issue for the French Greens -- Machine/Symbol: Le Cheval Vapeur (Farm tractor, or "Steam-Horse") -- The Cultural Backlash: In Search of a New Rural Balance -- Territorial Balancing -- French Uniqueness, French Ordinariness -- The Rise of Ecology -- The Prehistory of Ecological Awareness -- Environmentalism and Ecology: Working Definitions -- Nineteenth-Century Precursors in France: From "Acclimatation" to Conservation -- From Utility to Beauty: The Early Twentieth Century -- 1945-1960: Warnings Unheeded -- The Unexpected Trajectory of Environmentalist Success -- 1960-1974: Taking it to a New Level -- 1974-1981: Eco-Quixote vs. Electricite de France -- Machine/Symbol: The Nuclear Reactor -- 1981-1989: Entering the Political Fray -- 1989-present: "Tous Verts!"--"We are all environmentalists!" -- Nuances of Dark Green: The Intellectual Horizons of French Environmentalism -- A Revolution against the Industrial Revolution -- The Two Main Currents of French Green Thought.

Summary:

The accelerating interpenetration of nature and culture is the hallmark of the new "light-green" social order that has emerged in postwar France, argues Michael Bess in this penetrating new history. On one hand, a preoccupation with natural qualities and equilibrium has increasingly infused France's economic and cultural life. On the other, human activities have laid an ever more potent and pervasive touch on the environment, whether through the intrusion of agriculture, industry, and urban growth, or through the much subtler and more well-intentioned efforts of ecological management. The Light-Green Society limns sharply these trends over the last fifty years. The rise of environmentalism in the 1960s stemmed from a fervent desire to "save" wild nature-nature conceived as a qualitatively distinct domain, wholly separate from human designs and endeavors. And yet, Bess shows, after forty years of environmentalist agitation, much of it remarkably successful in achieving its aims, the old conception of nature as a "separate sphere" has become largely untenable. In the light-green society, where ecology and technological modernity continually flow together, a new hybrid vision of intermingled nature-culture has increasingly taken its place.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Book review (E-STREAMS)
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Publisher description
Contributor biographical information
Table of contents
Book review (E-STREAMS)
Table of contents
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0226044173 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780226044170 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0226044181 (alk. paper)
9780226044187 (alk. paper)

Subject:

Environmentalism France History 20th century.
Green movement France History 20th century.
Environnementalisme France Histoire 20e siècle.
Écologisme France Histoire 20e siècle.
Environmentalism.
Green movement.
Milieuvraagstuk.
Milieubeleid.
Ecologische beweging.
Technische vernieuwing.
Natuurbehoud.
Écologisme France 20e siècle.
Écologisme France Histoire.
Écologisme.
Histoire.
Impact social.
Mouvement écologiste.
Relation homme-nature.
1950-1999.
France.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 293677
Call No.: BIB 238793
Status: Available