The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000

The accelerating interpenetration of nature and culture is the hallmark of the new "light—green" social order that has emerged in postwar France, argues Michael Bess in this penetrating new history. On one hand, a preoccupation with natural qualities and equilibrium has increasingly infused France's economic and cultural life. On the other, human activities have laid an ever more potent and pervasive touch on the environment, whether through the intrusion of agriculture, industry, and urban...