American Contradictions and Pastoral Visions

An Appraisal of Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden

Bibliographic Data

ID20413331
AuthorsPeter F Cannavò (0000-0003-0578-5284, Harvard University, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume14
Issue1
Pages74-92
Publication date2001-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization & Environment (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1086-0266 • E-ISSN: 1552-7417
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1086026601141004
OpenAlexW1974636495
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited20

Leo Marx’s 1964 The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America was a foundational work in environmental studies. This article discusses the volume’s significance and how Marx’s ideas have evolved in later essays. Especially noteworthy is Marx’s insight into the contradictory relationship with nature embodied in American pastoralism. Americans celebrate nature and rural values and yet embrace industry and commercialism as means to a pastoral utopia, even though these are ultimately destructive of the natural environment. Given these contradictions and the ascendancy of industrial and commercial values, Marx argues that American pastoralism ultimately fails as a viable cultural and political ideal. This article is critical of such pessimism but also shows how, in later essays, Marx revises his prognosis. Marx comes to see the pastoral ideal, particularly as manifested in environmentalism, as offering a key political alternative to contemporary industrial society and its social and ecological pathologies

Aesthetics · Alienation · Commercialism · Commodification · Economy · Environmental ethics · Environmentalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Utopia · Vision · Anthropology · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices