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

Accounts of the history of American environmental thought typically characterize it as riven by a divide between a utilitarian preoccupation with “use” and a more romantic focus on “preservation.” Many contemporary environmental philosophers have fixated upon a similar debate between “anthropocentrism” and “ecocentrism.”