Abstract

Agency, Health and Social Survival addresses the interface of sociology and psychology, which its author argues is key to political change, Caroline New reviews academic positions on structure and agency, mental health and human nature theories; bringing out their implications for ecological politics. She suggests that effective social change, to end environmental destruction, is incompatible with our everyday notion of mental health as 'normal functioning'. Ecological activism has to be grounded in critical ideas of health as positive well being, and these in turn depend on theories of psychological human nature.