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04 April 2010: New book features Ted Benton's work on Darwin and Wallace

UPDATED:

The edited volume, "Nature, Society and Environmental Crisis" to be published in April 2010 explores the relationship between nature and society and

• Highlights the significant part Sociology can play in both understanding and shaping how human societies respond to the threat of ecological catastrophe
• Addresses a topic that is rapidly gaining interest within sociology and the wider political realm

The volume brings together an unusually broad range of contributors who offer a wide and fascinating scope of perspectives on this issue and opens with Ted Benton's discussion of the differences between Wallace and Darwin's views on human evolution.

He concludes that Wallace’s commitment to what might now be called environmental justice, and Darwin’s philosophical legacy of a non-reductive naturalism about human origins and nature are both crucially important resources for the kind of radical new thinking demanded by our current ecological and economic impasse.