[PEN-L:9704] Mumford (Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bill McKibben)

["frances bolton" <fbolton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob wrote:
>
>I still rate Lewis Mumford (*Technics & Civilisation* comes to mind).  The
>list'll tell us quickly enough if he's gone way out of fashion, I s'pose.
>

Mumford's undeservedly out of fashion. Off-hand (to be sure, it is quite
early, and I've not yet had my coffee) I can't think of anyone who uses him.
Langdon Winner looks at his work in *Autonomous Technics*, but that's a lit
review rather than the development of a theory. Some years ago I was having
dinner with Ramachandra Guha, a social historian/environmental thinker from
Bangalore, and he said that he thought Mumford is the most important
environmental thinker/technology critic that came out of the US.  I would
certainly agree that if he, rather than someone like John Muir, was the
patron saint of US environmentalism (and env. thinking) things would
probably be different.

Frances