The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and EnvironmentalThought in America. By Ben A. Minteer. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2006. 272p. $28.00.

Accounts of the history of American environmental thought typicallycharacterize it as riven by a divide between a utilitarianpreoccupation with “use” and a more romantic focus on“preservation.” Many contemporary environmental philosophers havefixated upon a similar debate between “anthropocentrism” and“ecocentrism.”