What do you think?
Rate this book
Our Synthetic Environment
2018 Reprint of 1962 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. Bookchin wrote Our Synthetic Environment under the pseudonym Lewis Herber. This was one of the first books of the modern period in which an author espoused an ecological and environmentalist worldview. It predates Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson, a more widely known book on the same topic widely credited as starting the environmental movement. "At the time of its publication, Our Synthetic Environment was the most comprehensive and enlightened book on the environmental crisis. Many other books on this topic have been published since, but none, I believe, as comprehensive." --Ren� Dubos
305 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
2 people are currently reading
350 people want to read
About the author
Murray Bookchin
121 books637 followersMurray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology. In the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the strategy of political Anarchism and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 1, 2017
"To many, this may seem to be progress. To the ecologist, however, it represents an attempt to bring the laws of the biosphere into accordance with those of the market place to reduce the natural world to merchandise. Nutritious crops can no more be expected to grow according to commercial schedules than man can be expected to adjust his pulse to the rhythm of machines." (Chapter Seven - Human Ecology)
What a marvelous read. Albeit the research here is dated, this book stands the test of time by its very mode of analysis, and its meticulous exposition of the myriad of negative effects our "synthetic" environment has on humans. What is even better than the simple references to the science of the time, it is the interpretation of them that is most interesting. Commodity production, profit seeking, growth for the sake of growth—the imperatives of the market—disconnected from genuine human need, unchecked by any concern for the very integrity of the eco-system, the health and well-being of people are first laid bare as the grave-digger of humanity.
"Our synthetic environment" is variegated in its criticism, on the avant-garde of ecological science of its time, it is extremely critical of its limitations, and its inability to analyse the deep-complexities of biologal-life (what is later to be referred to as "ecological" in Bookchin's work), let alone the interactions between the biological and the social. [1]
Visionary in its anticipation of the problems with certain fertilizers, the book goes on to essentially describe a plethora of ecological problems we still face today from soil erosion and desertification to over-diagnosis in the medical practice, up to the antibiotic resistance [2] cultivated by industrial husbandry. Not only that, but the author reaches back in history and traces back these problems to the trappings of civilisation and urbanization [3].
It is a great shame that today criticism of industrial agriculture lends itself to counter-attacks of anti-intelectualism, anti-science, and the like—because the understanding that the simplification, and reductionism of the market cannot be applied to the natural world [4]. And that the tools of modern discoveries have to applied with a more rigorous practice of reason, and wise application of technology in order to enrich nature, and the natural processes that keep the world going—not the puerile, simplistic, and outright barbaric use of technology and human toil that we see today.
Bookchin's first book, very differen, both in style, and content, from everything else he has written since. From here on out his books will mostly focus on the political project that is meant to mend the ills of "our synthetic environment". While the project itself is still in impasse—to the great peril of humanity—I think that an updated version of this book would be invaluable to turning the kindling of environmentalism into full-blown ecology. Such a project would not only make people understand the gravity of the situation, but it would weave it together with the ills of capitalist modernity and central civilisation: everything.
[1] Chapter One
Anything so complicated as a planet inhabited by more than a million and a half species of plants and animals, all of them living together in a more or less balanced equilibrium in which they continually use and reuse the same molecules of the soil and air, cannot be improved by aimless and uninformed tinkering. All changes in a complex mechanism involve some risk and should be undertaken only after careful study of all the facts available.
[2] Chapter Four - The Problem of Chemicals in Food
It is quite conceivable that the extensive use of antibiotics in agriculture will slowly turn our domestic animals into a major reservoir of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This represents a problem fraught with incalculable dangers to public health.
[3] Chapter Two
Throughout the Mediterranean world, vast manmade deserts have supplanted rich, fertile lands that once nourished luxuriant crops and supported large populations. In North Africa, for example, a terrible price has been paid for the ancient plantation economy, in which land was cultivated for a few cash crops. The Phoenician merchants who established Carthage found a semiarid but highly fertile soil on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
[4] Chapter Two
Nature seldom cultivates a single crop to the exclusion of all others. Variety and combination, of both plants and animals, constitute the basis for natural equilibrium.
What a marvelous read. Albeit the research here is dated, this book stands the test of time by its very mode of analysis, and its meticulous exposition of the myriad of negative effects our "synthetic" environment has on humans. What is even better than the simple references to the science of the time, it is the interpretation of them that is most interesting. Commodity production, profit seeking, growth for the sake of growth—the imperatives of the market—disconnected from genuine human need, unchecked by any concern for the very integrity of the eco-system, the health and well-being of people are first laid bare as the grave-digger of humanity.
"Our synthetic environment" is variegated in its criticism, on the avant-garde of ecological science of its time, it is extremely critical of its limitations, and its inability to analyse the deep-complexities of biologal-life (what is later to be referred to as "ecological" in Bookchin's work), let alone the interactions between the biological and the social. [1]
Visionary in its anticipation of the problems with certain fertilizers, the book goes on to essentially describe a plethora of ecological problems we still face today from soil erosion and desertification to over-diagnosis in the medical practice, up to the antibiotic resistance [2] cultivated by industrial husbandry. Not only that, but the author reaches back in history and traces back these problems to the trappings of civilisation and urbanization [3].
It is a great shame that today criticism of industrial agriculture lends itself to counter-attacks of anti-intelectualism, anti-science, and the like—because the understanding that the simplification, and reductionism of the market cannot be applied to the natural world [4]. And that the tools of modern discoveries have to applied with a more rigorous practice of reason, and wise application of technology in order to enrich nature, and the natural processes that keep the world going—not the puerile, simplistic, and outright barbaric use of technology and human toil that we see today.
Bookchin's first book, very differen, both in style, and content, from everything else he has written since. From here on out his books will mostly focus on the political project that is meant to mend the ills of "our synthetic environment". While the project itself is still in impasse—to the great peril of humanity—I think that an updated version of this book would be invaluable to turning the kindling of environmentalism into full-blown ecology. Such a project would not only make people understand the gravity of the situation, but it would weave it together with the ills of capitalist modernity and central civilisation: everything.
[1] Chapter One
Anything so complicated as a planet inhabited by more than a million and a half species of plants and animals, all of them living together in a more or less balanced equilibrium in which they continually use and reuse the same molecules of the soil and air, cannot be improved by aimless and uninformed tinkering. All changes in a complex mechanism involve some risk and should be undertaken only after careful study of all the facts available.
[2] Chapter Four - The Problem of Chemicals in Food
It is quite conceivable that the extensive use of antibiotics in agriculture will slowly turn our domestic animals into a major reservoir of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This represents a problem fraught with incalculable dangers to public health.
[3] Chapter Two
Throughout the Mediterranean world, vast manmade deserts have supplanted rich, fertile lands that once nourished luxuriant crops and supported large populations. In North Africa, for example, a terrible price has been paid for the ancient plantation economy, in which land was cultivated for a few cash crops. The Phoenician merchants who established Carthage found a semiarid but highly fertile soil on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
[4] Chapter Two
Nature seldom cultivates a single crop to the exclusion of all others. Variety and combination, of both plants and animals, constitute the basis for natural equilibrium.
June 16, 2024
The book is interesting to read from perspective of the development of Bookchin's philosophical and political thought. But also because of the comparison with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which came out a few months after Our Synthetic Environment. Both perspectives, the social (Bookchin) and the biological (Carson), have added something to our mosaic of knowledge and so have been of great benefit to our understanding of the toxicity of the environment.
By placing the issue in a broader social context, Bookchin went further than Carson in finding the causes of the problem with the chemical industry. In doing so, he calls for a deeper exploration of human society's relationship to nature, a precursor to his future concept of social ecology. In the book we can find several elements that would later become pillars of Bookchin's thinking, such as the decentralisation of cities.
Despite Bookchin's critique of man's domination of nature, his perspective is not entirely outside this hierarchical optic. This is evidenced, for example, by his assertion that "the soil, the land, the living things on which man depends for his nutriment and recreation are direly in need of individual care". Of course, the land, the earth and living "things" can do without human care. Bookchin also considered the induction of cancer in non-human animals a success and did not criticize testing on them.
Our Synthetic Environment, unlike Silent Spring, did not gain much public prestige. Bookchin's political background also played a role in this. However, the book gained a lot of importance in academic circles and on the green left, especially in Germany. In its time, it was a groundbreaking work that brought us new knowledge and a deeper insight into the toxicity of the environment in which we live.
-------------------------
Knihu je zaujímavé čítať z hľadiska vývoja Bookchinovho filozofického i politického myslenia. Ale aj kvôli porovnaniu so Silent spring od Rachel Carson, ktorá vyšla pár mesiacov po Our Synthetic Environment. Obe perspektívy, spoločenská (Bookchin) i biologická (Carson), nám doplnili mozaiku vedomostí a mali veľký prínos pre pochopenie toxicity prostredia, v ktorom žijeme.
Zasadením témy do širšieho spoločenského kontextu zašiel Bookchin pri hľadaní príčin problému s chemickým priemyslom o kus ďalej ako Carson. Vyzýva tak k hlbšiemu skúmaniu vzťahov ľudskej spoločnosti k prírode, čo je predzvesťou jeho budúceho konceptu sociálnej ekológie. V knihe môžeme nájsť niekoľko prvkov, ktoré sa neskôr stanú piliermi Bookchinovho myslenia, ako je napríklad decentralizácia miest.
Napriek Bookchinovej kritike nadvlády človeka nad prírodou, jeho pohľad nie je úplne mimo tejto hierarchickej optiky. Dokazuje to napríklad tvrdenie, že „pôda, krajina, živé veci, od ktorých je človek závislý pri svojej obžive a rekreácii, veľmi potrebujú individuálnu starostlivosť“. Pôda, krajina a živé „veci“ sa samozrejme vedia zaobísť aj bez starostlivosti ľudí. Bookchin tiež považoval za úspech vyvolanie rakoviny u mimoľudských zvierat a testovanie na nich nijak nekritizoval.
Our Synthetic Environment, na rozdiel od Silent spring, nezískalo veľkú verejnú prestíž. Svoju rolu v tom zohralo aj Bookchinove politické pozadie. Kniha však nadobudla veľký význam v akademických kruhoch a zelenej ľavici, hlavne v Nemecku. Vo svojej dobe išlo o prelomové dielo, ktoré nám prinieslo nové vedomosti a hlbší pohľad na toxicitu prostredia, v ktorom žijeme.
By placing the issue in a broader social context, Bookchin went further than Carson in finding the causes of the problem with the chemical industry. In doing so, he calls for a deeper exploration of human society's relationship to nature, a precursor to his future concept of social ecology. In the book we can find several elements that would later become pillars of Bookchin's thinking, such as the decentralisation of cities.
Despite Bookchin's critique of man's domination of nature, his perspective is not entirely outside this hierarchical optic. This is evidenced, for example, by his assertion that "the soil, the land, the living things on which man depends for his nutriment and recreation are direly in need of individual care". Of course, the land, the earth and living "things" can do without human care. Bookchin also considered the induction of cancer in non-human animals a success and did not criticize testing on them.
Our Synthetic Environment, unlike Silent Spring, did not gain much public prestige. Bookchin's political background also played a role in this. However, the book gained a lot of importance in academic circles and on the green left, especially in Germany. In its time, it was a groundbreaking work that brought us new knowledge and a deeper insight into the toxicity of the environment in which we live.
-------------------------
Knihu je zaujímavé čítať z hľadiska vývoja Bookchinovho filozofického i politického myslenia. Ale aj kvôli porovnaniu so Silent spring od Rachel Carson, ktorá vyšla pár mesiacov po Our Synthetic Environment. Obe perspektívy, spoločenská (Bookchin) i biologická (Carson), nám doplnili mozaiku vedomostí a mali veľký prínos pre pochopenie toxicity prostredia, v ktorom žijeme.
Zasadením témy do širšieho spoločenského kontextu zašiel Bookchin pri hľadaní príčin problému s chemickým priemyslom o kus ďalej ako Carson. Vyzýva tak k hlbšiemu skúmaniu vzťahov ľudskej spoločnosti k prírode, čo je predzvesťou jeho budúceho konceptu sociálnej ekológie. V knihe môžeme nájsť niekoľko prvkov, ktoré sa neskôr stanú piliermi Bookchinovho myslenia, ako je napríklad decentralizácia miest.
Napriek Bookchinovej kritike nadvlády človeka nad prírodou, jeho pohľad nie je úplne mimo tejto hierarchickej optiky. Dokazuje to napríklad tvrdenie, že „pôda, krajina, živé veci, od ktorých je človek závislý pri svojej obžive a rekreácii, veľmi potrebujú individuálnu starostlivosť“. Pôda, krajina a živé „veci“ sa samozrejme vedia zaobísť aj bez starostlivosti ľudí. Bookchin tiež považoval za úspech vyvolanie rakoviny u mimoľudských zvierat a testovanie na nich nijak nekritizoval.
Our Synthetic Environment, na rozdiel od Silent spring, nezískalo veľkú verejnú prestíž. Svoju rolu v tom zohralo aj Bookchinove politické pozadie. Kniha však nadobudla veľký význam v akademických kruhoch a zelenej ľavici, hlavne v Nemecku. Vo svojej dobe išlo o prelomové dielo, ktoré nám prinieslo nové vedomosti a hlbší pohľad na toxicitu prostredia, v ktorom žijeme.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews