Book excerpt: First published in 1991, this title provides a comprehensive and objective account of the basis of ‘green’ arguments and their social and political implications. By the beginning of the 1990s, environmental awareness had become widespread, popular, and fashionable throughout the West, adopted by politicians, manufacturers and advertising agencies. The book sets out to explain why and how the ‘green wave’ developed, and examines the forces still shaping green politics and policies at an international level. With important implications across the fields of Sociology, Development Studies and Environment and Sustainability, this reissue will be valuable to a broad student and academic readership.