Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

Uncovers the significant origins of environmentalism as a moral and intellectual reaction against the growing power of corporate capitalism.
Shows how, during the postwar era's anti-communist crusades, environmentalism provided a relatively safe space from which to critique government and corporate culture.
Narrates how environmentally minded green consumers constructed a separate "green economy" and a distinct subculture, including organic foods, natural-fiber clothing, clean water, and alternative energy.

Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

Description

Although often linked to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), and Sixties era social movement, environmentalism arose in response to anxieties and tensions over the fate of the planet that first came to light with the atomic bomb blasts and the end of the Second World War that moved some thinkers to ponder other ways that humans might be endangering the planet. Their focus turned to the growing power of big business. More than ever, powerful corporations and a federal government bent on economic growth were seen by many Americans as threats to human health and the environment. Fallout from atomic testing, air and water pollution, the proliferation of pesticides and herbicides-all connected to the growing dominance of technology and corporate capitalism in American life-led a variety of constituencies to seek solutions in what came to be known as environmentalism.

In addition to the usual political and legal maneuvers employed to effect change, an alternative form of civic participation emerged beginning in the late-1940s as growing numbers of citizens turned to what they deemed environmentally friendly consumption practices. The goal of this politically charged consumption was not only to protect themselves and their families from harm, but to achieve social change at a time when many Americans believed the polity was increasingly out of balance, with government placing the desires of business before the needs of its citizens. Politicians responded to the growing environmental concerns of middle class Americans, but, in the end, continual political compromises with corporate power meant weak laws and lax enforcement. Many citizens sought refuge in an alternative "green" marketplace-an attempt to find a space within an imagined community of others who shared their concerns and frustrations, as well as their vision for a different American Way.

Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Shopping As If Their Lives (and the Planet's) Depended on It
Part I: A New Era
1. "Sons of Bitches": Sources of Postwar Anxiety
2. Green Consumption in a Dangerous World
3. Downwinders
4. Chemicals and Romance
Part II: A New Response
5. "A Ground Swell of Public Indignation"
6. The 'New' Conservation
7. "Striking Back at the Goddam Sons of Bitches"
8. Green Consumption Goes Mainstream
Conclusion: "The Clock is Ticking"
Notes
Index

Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

Author Information

Thomas Jundt, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Brown University

Thomas Jundt is Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Brown University

Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

Reviews and Awards

"Greening the Red, White, and Blue carefully demonstrates that an environmental consciousness developed earlier than is commonly assumed, in the postwar years rather than the 1960s. By examining reactions to atomic testing, pesticides, concerns about air pollution, and increasing corporate power, Thomas Jundt expertly traces the many paths that Americans took on the way to environmental consciousness. This book nicely shows the ways in which American consumers were both complicit and critical in dealing with the environmental challenges of the postwar world." - Lawrence Glickman, author of Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America

Greening the Red, White, and Blue

The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America

Thomas Jundt

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