Our Common Dwelling

Newman's approach allows him to present a rich, if economical history of transcendentalism that recognizes the movement's heterogeneity, its emergence out of the crucible of class conflict, and Thoreau's embeddedness within a larger exploration of meaningful responses to sociocultural changes wrought by capitalist industrialization. -- American Literature In this brilliant and urgent book, Newman clears away the cobwebs to reintroduce us to our radical contemporary: Thoreau. --Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear and Late Victorian Holocausts Our Common Dwelling is an ambitious and substantial reinterpretation of nineteenth- century New England literature. Newman is one of the most penetrating and forceful voices among the new wave of American ecocritics. --Lawrence Buell, author of The Environmental Imagination and Writing for an Endangered World This illuminating study explores, in essence, the intellectual roots of the social movements known today as environmental justice and liberation ecology. --Scott Slovic, author of Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing Urgent, powerful, thoughtful, clear-sighted: this is engaged criticism at its finest. Anyone interested in Thoreau, ecocriticism, or environmental justice will find here both provocation and hope. --Laura Walls, author of Seeing New Worlds: Henry Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science