This book takes ideas Gottlieb first introduced in his excellent book Forcing the Spring and extends them in important new conceptual and concrete ways. He effectively broadens conceptions of the environment to include issues that are generally taken to be more industrial or agricultural. The arguments he makes for taking a broader view are most persuasive and hopeful. They show a way for the environment to become more than the narrow regulatory subject it is now.
Helen Ingram, Professor of Political Science and Warmington Endowed Chair in the School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine
Environementalism Unbound is a powerful reinterpretation of environmentalism and a trenchant critique of established environmental organizations and the environmental justice movement. Filled with historical insight and practical wisdom, the book serves as a road map for revitalizing America's most important social movements, bringing urban issues, industrial development, the hazards of work, and efforts to achieve livable communities to the center of the debate about society's relation to the natural world. A tough, profoundly inspiring, and optimistic book.
Carl Anthony, Urban Habitat Program and the San Francisco Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development
We've come to expect provocative, insightful ideas from Robert Gottlieb about the environment and the environmental movement. His new book, Environmentalism Unbound, does not disappoint. Linking environmental justice and pollution prevention, the social and the ecological, and an ethic of place, he urges us to reconsider our environmental objectives and to clarify the expected results. This is an accessible book that at once elevates the dialogue about environmentalism and puts the responsibility for rethinking our values and actions squarely in our laps.
Martin V. Melosi, Distinguished University Professor, University of Houston, Author of The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present
Environmentalism Unbound is cogent and visionary.
Chip Ward Washington Post
Environmentalism Unbound is a convincing nudge in a positive direction. Gottlieb leaves us with much food for thought.
White Journal of the American Planning Association