Ruskin and Environment

The authors of this important new study examine a wide variety of environmental issues in the work of the great Victorian polymath, John Ruskin, and argue that his prophetic writings speak to our generation as much as his own. Best known today as an art critic and social theorist, John Ruskin (1819-1900) was also an acute observer and recorder of the natural environment, and of the impact of Victorian industrialisation and urbanisation upon it. He argued passionately against railways and tourism, river pollution and acid rain, and as passionately for the care of ancient buildings and improved…