Violent Environments

"Provides both a critique of the school of environmental security and alternative ways of understanding the connections between environment and science."Book News, January 2002 "Violent Environments is a thought-provoking. . .volume that should be read carefully by all those interested in the various debates over environmental security. Many of the book's theoretical arguments and empirical findings provide important and timely challenges to mainstream approaches to studying the environment-violence nexus. Neo-Malthusian critics will find much to build upon in their efforts to develop a more systematic political economy/political ecology alternative."Colin Kahl, University of Minnesota, Environmental Change and Security Project Report, Issue 8, 2002 "This book calls for a bold new fusion of a multifaceted political economy with environmental and cultural politics to address the real landscapes of violence. Opening up a vast new arena for debate, discussion, and political action, Violent Environments establishes convincing grounds for a thorough rethinking of the subject. The critique it offers is both compelling and desperately needed."Karl S. Zimmerer, University of Wisconsin "This important book offers a topical, richer and more complex approach to understanding the connections between population and the environment than does the current conventional wisdom. With a healthy variety of case studies and a focus both on a wide range of environmental topics and on the diverse forms of violence associated with environmental relations, Violent Environments is a unique and provocative collection."Philip McMichael, Cornell University, author of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

Nancy Lee Peluso is Associate Professor of Environmental Sociology and Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Michael Watts is Director of the Institute of International Studies and Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley.