Our Synthetic Environment

From the Introduction: “Although more than twelve years have passed since Our Synthetic Environment was first published (under the pen-name Lewis Herber), the book seems as contemporary as it did in the early sixties. On rereading it, I find very little I would now want to change. The environmental deterioration that the book emphasized and documented has worsened since 1962 and perhaps taken more sinister forms. We are confronted as seriously with the problems of subclinical illness, the changing spectrum of disease, soil deterioration, low-quality food, urban breakdown, chemical food additives, environmental cancer from air, water, and radioactive pollution – in short, the grave problems of ‘human ecology’ – as we were more than a decase ago…. “In my view it is not a specific book that has withstood the test of time and retained its relevancy after the passing of so many years. What time has verified is a mode of thought – ecological in its natural outlook, libertarian in its social perspectives, and utopian in its ideals. Herein lies the book’s reconstructive message. Herein, too, lies the hope, not the shalllow optimism, that humanity will find its way toward a healing of the ancient split between human and human – and between humanity and nature.” …………………………………………………………………… “At the time of its publication, Our Synthetic Environment was the most comprehensive and enlightened book on the environmental crisis. Many other books on this topic have been published since, but none, I believe, as comprehensive.” --René Dubos