This book looks to the history of the 'the commons' in American and European social thought to better understand contemporary environmental problems. The authors show how American law governing lands and resources relies on the individualist assumptions of Enlightenment thinkers, who regarded land as 'wasted' when not being 'improved' by European agriculture or colonization. Curry and McGuire trace the history of this philosophical and historical legacy and reveal its strong influence on American concepts on community and land. They not only reveal the law's insufficient comprehension of community rights, but they also advocate realistic policy alternatives whereby community governance can better solve the challenges of resource management and other American social problems.

When people, land, and community are as one, all members prosper. When regarded as competing agents, all suffer. These authors show what we must do to get it right. -- Wes Jackson, author of New Roots for Agriculture
In a well-reasoned, coherent . . . discussion, Curry and McGuire argue for a renewal of the 'concept of community' to counter the pervasive influence of individualism in all its form. A valuable contribution. * Choice Reviews *
Curry and McGuire's provocative analysis shows that the privatization and degradation of the American 'commons' have deep historical roots within the rise of industrial civilization and of the individualistic capitalist ethos. But they also show that history is now being rewritten as promising new alternatives to the degradation of land emerge within American and Third world rural communities. A critical analysis of a critical social and environmental problem. -- Frederick H. Buttel, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Janel M. Curry is the dean for research and scholarship at Calvin College in Michigan. Steven McGuire is associate professor and chair of the sociology department at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio.