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Book Review: Poststructuralist geographies: the diabolical art of spatial science

as extracts dealing with animal rights. There are missing from the reader many aspects of environmental thought that could be included, such as religion, ecological economics and especially environmental politics with its explorations of green parties and environmental ‘movements’. As with so many texts, the title promises more breadth than it can possibly deliver, but the book’s more realistic focus on considering ecological justice and citizenship is effectively realized through the judicious use of enlightening and provoking readings. I still have two problems with this book: one serious and one less so. To start with the latter, I wonder how easily a reader new to these debates could make coherent sense from the host of authors, given that the sectional introductions provided by Smith are cursory and provide précis only. What about commenting upon the cultural significance of particular authors, the amount of commentary that they stimulated in their time and since, and why they have proved so influential (or contentious) in environmental thought? No doubt these connections are made through discussion and other materials within the Open University’s course, but as a stand-alone text the book makes the reader do too much of the editor’s work (or do without the insights that could aid interpretation). Individual extracts were presumably chosen for very different reasons, which the editor should explain. Rachel Carson for example is vastly different in style to the others and thus justification must clarify her iconic status, whereas other extracts might be justified on grounds of sheer elegance, Keith Thomas being the most frequent example. Inevitably, word length will restrict the amount of introductory material, but a little more help for the reader would be an advantage. More seriously, though, I was surprised to find the book so heavily anchored in AngloAmerican environmental thought. Despite the breadth of its title, despite recent debates over the relationships between the environment and global trade, indigenous protest and resistance, international security, cultural relativism and North-South negotiations, Thinking through the environment encourages the reader to think in ways informed predominantly by post-1960s Anglo-American academics, a characteristic sadly reinforced in Smith’s introductory chapter. In a textbook of this length and quality, I expected a greater crosscultural richness and diversity. Maybe this simply did not fit the remit of the course and therefore of the book, but it should, given that Smith says his aim is to provide ‘a guide to the different ways that thinking through the environment has been constructed (p. xi). There are more ways than are dreamt of here.