Edited by
Heather Eaton
and Lois Ann Lorentzen

TH IS VOLUME IS AN IMPORTANT EFFORT to evaluate the discourse of ecofemi- nism, which has emerged worldwide in the last three decades, and to explore
its adequacy to the challenges of “globalization”; that is to say, to the vast
human misery and degradation of the environment that is being wrought by
the Western corporate domination of the world economy. The book brings together
both critics and advocates of ecofeminist discourse. There are those who
write from a more theoretical perspective and those who delve into concrete
cases of the interconnection of women and ecology. There are those who write
from a first-world context and others from the “Two-Thirds World,” from
Africa, India, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Some writers are rooted in Christianity;
others examine the issue from other religious or philosophical traditions,
such as Buddhism. All are interested in interconnections, not only between issues
of sexism and ecology, but also between theory and practice, between spirituality
and ethical action. As someone who has written about ecofeminism before
the word itself was coined-if you count my 1975 book, New Women, New
Earth, as an ecofeminist classic (as some have named it)-I am honored to
have been asked to write the preface to this rich collection of essays.