ABSTRACT
Contemporary scientists’ views have played a big part in today’s green movement and so it makes good sense to see their nineteenth century counterparts as contributing to the history of ecologism. Minimalists cast their net wider so that the definition of ecologism is subject to fewer and/or less stringent conditions. The distinction is evident in the debate over ecologism’s historical origins – minimalists will be more happy than maximalists to locate its roots before the twentieth century. In public debate it is not very common to distinguish between environmentalism and ecologism, and most people will make green politics wholly synonymous with the former. The maximalist point of view suggests, though, that it is not possible to be a socialist, conservative or liberal and a political ecologist, because ecologism calls into question too many of the assumptions on which socialism, conservatism and liberalism are based.
