We all care about the planet: few are untouched by a concern for the environment and the future of the earth. Yet very few of us apparently want to see the political representatives of green ideology in power. Anna Bramwell provides an analysis of the failure to create a new politics.

The book traces how Green consciousness became skewed in political practice, preventing it from attracting support commensurate with popular feeling. Bramwell tracks this mismatch largely in relation to the dominance of the German greens, and their specific and untypical characteristics. Environmental consciousness, she argues, is undoubtedly here to stay, yet, "in the process of rationalising environmentalism, of costing it, of playing trade wars with it, our concern for the intangible beauties of the natural world may go by the board". The result of the manifest integrity and courage of green activists may, ironically, be a West further impoverished by attempts to meet the demands of the developing world. But only the maligned West has the money and will to conserve the environment.

Part 1 A Historical Survey: The 19th-Century Roots of Ecology
The Northern White Empire
The USA, 1970 to the Present
Germany, 1970 to the Present
Britain, 1970 to the Present. Part 2 Strategies: Politics and Tactics
Sustainable Development
Questions not Answers
Deep Ecology and Civil Disobedience
Ecocentrism - a Viable Ideal? Part 3 Green Futures: Environmentalism in Eastern Europe
The Impact of Eastern Europe on Western Greens
The Green Future?.