Forcing the Spring challenges standard histories of the environmental movement by offering a broad and inclusive interpretation of past environmentalist thought and a sweeping redefinition of the nature of the contemporary environmental movement. Robert Gottlieb demonstrates the centrality of environmental concerns to a wide range of social movements of the past century as he explores the connections between pressures on human and natural environments and the role of these pressures in shaping society. His analysis provides fundamental new insights into the past and future of the American environmental movement by placing it within the larger context of American social history.After considering the historical roots of environmentalism from the 1890s through the 1960s, Gottlieb discusses the rise and consolidation of environmental groups in the years between Earth Day 1970 and Earth Day 1990. He examines the increasing professionalization of the major environmental organizations and the parallel rise of community-based groups over the past decade, and ends with an in-depth consideration of the role of ethnicity, gender, and class in the formation and definition of movements.

1. Resources and Recreation: The Limits of the Traditional Debate
2. Urban and Industrial Roots: Seeking to Reform the System
3. The Sixties Rebellion: The Search for a New Politics
4. Professionalization and Institutionalization: The Mainstream Groups
5. Grassroots and Direct Action: Alternative Movements
6. Gender and Place: Women and Environmentalism
7. Ethnicity as a Factor: The Quest for Environmental Justice
8. A Question of Class: The Workplace Experience
Conclusion: Environmentalism Redefined
Afterword: A Note on Method