Engaging Nature: Environmentalism and the Canon ed. by Peter Cannavò and Joseph Lane Jr. (review)

In his review of the field of environmental political theory in The Politics of Nature, Andrew Dobson suggested that one way for the discipline to develop was through an engagement with the history of political thought, through “bringing previously buried political theorists to our attention…(and) forcing us to reassess the work of canonical theorists” (Dobson 1993, 232). Over ten years after Dobson’s initial suggestion, John Meyer notes that this approach had flourished as “a new generation of political theorists” engaged in this project (Meyer 2006, 779) and the results of their work have shone new light on the political canon and broke new ground in environmental political thought.

However for all the good scholarship that there has been in this field since Dobson’s first outline and Meyer’s review, there has not yet been any work which considers a wide range of past thinkers and explores the link between these works and environmental politicsin particular. With Engaging Nature, editors Peter Cannavò and Joseph Lane Jr. have sought to address this gap. This accomplished volume draws together examinations of fifteen different figures from the political theory canon and places their work in conversation with the concepts and ideas of contemporary environmental political thought. As a result the book works on two levels—firstly it defends this approach to environmental political thought, and secondly it applies that approach across a range of material. The text therefore succeeds as both a methodological work and as an examination of how several past thinkers have explored the relationship between people and their environment. Engaging Naturetherefore enables us to understand that, though environmental political thought “has brought new concerns, insights and challenges to existing traditions … it represents an adaption and evolution of earlier modes of thought” (Cannavò and Lane 2014, 22).

Within this review I will first provide an overview of the volume as a whole, with each chapter summarized to show the variety and depth of the works covered here. I will then assess the text by picking out key themes and the questions that are raised for this approach as a whole. I end by suggesting further avenues for exploration opened up by this work.

OVERVIEW

In order to do justice to the range of material covered in this volume, this section will examine each chapter in turn. The thinkers considered represent “the traditional figures in the standard canon of political theory” (Ibid. 10), as well as authors who challenge the biases and presumptions of the canon (Wollstonecraft and Du Bois) and more recent authors who are reaching canonical status (Heidegger and Arendt). The chapters are each written by a specialist on that particular thinker and each chapter takes a different approach in examining how their chosen figure engaged with the “questions raised and theories advanced by recent environmental political thought” (Ibid. 7). The chapters are arranged in chronological order to emphasise how these concepts and ideas developed over time and to show the immediate context of each author. (The exception is the last chapter on Confucius, which is designed to link to the call in the conclusion for a further engagement with non-Western canons.)

In the first chapter Sheryl D. Breen explores the link between the work of Plato and the questions and concerns of current environmentalism. After first reviewing the growing literature on this topic, Breen differentiates the argument of this chapter and makes clear her unique contribution: “whereas earlier commentators emerged primarily from the field of environmental ethics, I focus on Plato’s political theory” (Ibid. 30). ²Within Plato’s political thought, Breen focuses on the arguments in The Republicconcerning the ideal polis and property and agriculture, as she believes this material explores Plato’s conception of “the boundaries of the relationship between humans and the natural or external world” (Ibid. 43). Examining Plato’s prohibition on private property ownership for the guardians and auxiliaries of the republic, it...