Description
Book SynopsisAs environmental deterioration became a major political issue near the end of the twentieth century, activists in Nova Scotia stood together to defend the places they called home. They cooperated to protect local environments and economies, but they disagreed about the causes of environmental problems, the role of humanity in nature, and the place of environmentalists in the political process.
In Defence of Home Places examines the diversity of environmental activism in Nova Scotia, illustrating how radicals and conservatives combined efforts to achieve early legislative and social success. It also chronicles the debates and disagreements over fundamental principles that then weakened and divided the powerful environmental movement.
Placing the evolution of Nova Scotian environmental activism within a broader theoretical framework, Mark R. Leeming considers its development in national and international contexts, examining the environmental movement itself along
Trade Review
... Leeming has produced an important work that will require environmental historians and others to rethink their approach to the growth of modern environmentalism in Canada. The shift in focus away from the big organizations and from the national to the provincial level, combined with a meticulous mapping out of linkages between myriad groups, culminates in a significant contribution to the burgeoning historiography on environmentalism.
-- Mark McLaughlin, Department of History & the Canadian-American Center, University of Maine * NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment *
In Defense of Home Places is a little book that encourages us to think big … The appearance of ‘Home Places’ in the title is telling; it speaks to the concept of environmental localism, that jealous love of place, the intimate, sensory, psycho-social relationship with specific settings that so often underlies environmental activism …
In Defense of Home Places posits the notion that there is no single history of environmentalism in Atlantic Canada … Leeming’s admirable study has given us Nova Scotia’s experience. It represents a friendly challenge to others to unearth the remaining Atlantic Canadian experiences. -- Edward MacDonald, University of Prince Edward Island * Acadiensis *
Table of ContentsForeword: Environmental Action and the Question of Scale / Graeme Wynn
Introduction
1 At Home and Abroad: The Genesis of Environmentalism
2 The Two MECs: Anti-Nuclear Environmentalism
3 Power from the People: The Anti-Chemical Campaigns
4 Two Environmentalisms: Uranium and Radicalism
5 Watermelons and Market Greens: Legacies of Early Activism
Notes
Bibliography
Index
