Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-371) and index.

The schizophrenic fifties -- Pollution and pessimism -- Politics and the environment -- Energy politics -- Crises and critics -- Anti- and counterenvironmentalists -- Ecologists and historians -- Deep and radical ecology -- Global warming -- Environmental issues of the 1990s -- The new millennium. "Few issues today excite more passion or alarm than the specter of climate change. In A Climate of Crisis, historian Patrick Allitt shows that our present climate of crisis is far from exceptional. Indeed, the environmental debates of the last half century are defined by exaggeration and fearmongering from all sides, often at the expense of the facts."--Dust jacket flap.