Environment and Society

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 1-16

3. What Is Nature?

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 17-32

4. Humanity and Nature

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 33-53

5. The Socionatural Entanglement

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 55-71

6. The Coming of the Anthropocene

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 73-94

7. Political Natures

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 95-118

8. The Future of Nature

   • Manuel Arias-Maldonado

   Pages 119-128

9. Back Matter

   Pages 129-131

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This short book sets out to explore the concept of nature in the context of a changing reality, in which the extent of our transformation of the environment has become evident: What is nature and to what extent has humanity transformed it? How do nature and society relate to one another? What does the idea of a sustainable society entail and how can nature be understood as a political subject? What is the Anthropocene and how does it affect nature as both an idea and a material entity? Has nature perhaps “ended?” In addressing these questions, the author delivers a concise but meaningful study of contemporary understandings of nature, one that goes beyond the limits posed by a single discipline. Adopting a truly comprehensive perspective, the work incorporates classical disciplines such as philosophy, evolutionary theory and the history of ideas; new and mixed approaches ranging from environmental sociology to neurobiology and ecological economics and the emerging area of the environmental humanities and represents a growing branch of political thought that views nature as a new political subject.

• Anthropocene
• Environmental sociology
• Natural environment
• Nature and society
• Sustainable society

“This very compelling book appears in a series entitled ‘SpringerBriefs in Political Science’, and it ably fulfils the assignment of presenting the key issues relevant to its topic quickly and efficiently. … Environment and Society is thus extremely successful as a report from the field, on the state of normative reflection on recent research on the complex interactions between human beings and the physical environment they inhabit.” (Zev Trachtenberg, Environmental Values, Vol. 25 (5), October, 2016)

• University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

  Manuel Arias-Maldonado

Manuel Arias Maldonado (1974) is Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Malaga, Spain. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in the University of Berkeley, a research associate at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich and has researched in places such as Keele, Oxford and Siena. He has worked extensively on environmental issues, from a sociopolitical as well as from a philosophical standpoint. Other research topics include, political liberalism, deliberative democracy, as well as Wikipedia and the social implications of information technologies. His last book is Real Green. Sustainability after the End of Nature (Ashgate, London, 2012). He is a regular book reviewer in the academic journal Environmental Politics. Finally, he publishes regularly in several Spanish cultural journals, such as Revista de Libros, Letras Libres, Revista de Occidente and Lettre International Deutschland.

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