U.S. Environmentalism since 1945: A Brief History with Documents

By the end of World War II, Americans' relationship with nature had changed dramatically. New consumption patterns drove an industrial economy that exploited the earth in new ways, and the atomic age heightened awareness of the earth's fragility. Environmental historian Steven Stoll identifies 1945 as the year in which environmentalism was born -- a fusion of decades-old thinking about conservation with activism to form a diverse political movement. In this thematically organized collection of primary sources, Stoll traces the development of the environmental movement and identifies its central premises and ideologies, including preservation politics, population growth, biological interdependence, climate change, ethical consumption, and environmental justice. Stoll's insightful introduction provides students with a solid overview of environmentalism's origins and contextualizes the issues raised by the documents. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.