Invitation to Environmental Sociology Third Edition

“I love your book, it is one of the most fascinating I have ever read (certainly the most riveting textbook). The ideas you present are so on key… I just wanted to let you know how incredible your book is. Thank you for writing it.”

—Student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston

Bringing social and environmental interactions together as an ecological dialogue

The Third Edition of An Invitation to Environmental Sociology brings out the sociology of environmental possibility, inviting students to delve into this rapidly changing field. Written in a lively, engaging style, author Michael Bell covers the broad range of topics in environmental sociology with a personal passion rarely seen in sociology texts. With extensively updated material on our environmental situation, this edition challenges readers with the complexity of environmental puzzles.

"I love your book, it is one of the most fascinating I have ever read (certainly the most riveting textbook). The ideas you present are so on key—I just wanted to let you know how incredible your book is. Thank you for writing it."

-Student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston

Bringing social and environmental interactions together as an ecological dialogue

The Third Edition of An Invitation to Environmental Sociology brings out the sociology of environmental possibility, inviting students to delve into this rapidly changing field. Written in a lively, engaging style, author Michael Bell covers the broad range of topics in environmental sociology with a personal passion rarely seen in sociology texts. With extensively updated material on our environmental situation, this edition challenges readers with the complexity of environmental puzzles.

New to the Third Edition

• Offers two new chapters - "Mobilizing the Ecological Society" and "Governing the Ecological Society"
• Improves the exposition and integration of the unifying concept of ecological dialogue
• Develops the notion of virtual environmentalism as a practical application of environmental sociology to real-world problems
• Offers a new integration of environmental social movement theory
• Discusses the latest theoretical trends in environmental sociology, including environmental flows, the Jevons paradox, disproportionality, degrowth, and participatory governance
• Presents evocative sketches that open each chapter
• Includes many new examples of the theoretical concepts

Ancillaries

• Instructor Resources on CD feature chapter summaries, Powerpoint slides, projects and classroom exercises, test questions, and more, are available for qualified adopters. Contact Customer Care at 1.800.818.7243 (6am - 5pm PT) to request a copy.

Intended Audience
This book is designed as a core text for courses in Environmental Sociology. It can also be used in courses such as Social Problems, Introduction to Environmental Issues, Human Dimensions of the Environment, and Environmental Ethics.

"This is the perfect text for an introductory course in Environmental Sociology."
-Eric Friedman, Drew University

Michael Mayerfeld Bell is an associate professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mike is principally an environmental sociologist, but he also conducts research on culture, economic sociology, sustainable agriculture, community, place, rural society, inequality, gender, the body, democracy, and social theory. Two central themes can be heard in all of his work: dialogics and the sociology of "nature," broadly conceived. Mike is the author of Childerley: Nature and Morality in a Country Village (University of Chicago Press, 1994), which was co-winner of the 1995 Outstanding Book Award of the Sociology of Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. He is the author, along with Gregory Peter, Susan Jarnagin, and Donna Bauer, of the forthcoming book Farming for Us All: Practical Agriculture and the Cultivation of Sustainability (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004). The second edition of his An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (Pine Forge Press [Sage]), 1998) will appear in 2004. Mike has also worked as a geologist, and is the author of The Face of Connecticut: People, Geology, and the Land (State of Connecticut, 1985), which won an American Library Association award.

Mike continues to have a second life as a part-time composer of songs, fiddle tunes, and classical music. He also plays mandolin in an old-time string band, the Barn Owl Band, which recently appeared on the national public radio show A Prairie Home Companion. He is currently at work on a string quartet, a suite for piano, and a symphonic poem.

You can learn more about Mike's work and passions athttp://www.michaelmbell.net.