The echoing greens: The neo-romanticism of earth first! and reclaim the streets in the U.K.

Hunt, Stephen E.

Abstract

Influenced by American naturalist William Bartram, Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge provided much of the literary heritage for American Transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and succeeding nature appreciators Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. The network was born of disillusionment with the perceived limitations of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, coupled with inspiration from the bandit spirit of Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang. In this 1975 novel, Hayduke and his comrades take radical direct action in defense of the wilderness. The area next to Dungeness nuclear power station is an example. This is one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe, through which sea kale and viper's bugloss push up, next to extraordinary Edwardian chalets. While the surrounding area, designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), boasts significant ecological diversity, EF!'s English debut was about opposing nuclear power, not the kind of wilderness defense called for in Oregon or Clayoquot Sound.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 6, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Journal: Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
• Print ISSN: 1045-5752
• Electronic ISSN: 1548-3290
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 83-101
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2013.784526
• Keywords: romanticism, Earth First!, Reclaim the Streets, new social movements, ecological activism
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/931737
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2013.784526
• Related Public URLs: http://www.cnsjournal.org/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Capitalism Nature Socialism on 24 May 2014, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10455752.2013.784526