Raymond Williams: materialism and ecocriticism

Raymond Williams is widely regarded as among the leading intellectuals of the British left in the later twentieth century, as well as one of the period's major literary and cultural critics. He was unusual in discussing questions of ecology and sustainability at a time when few public figures did so. His conviction that environmental questions must lie at the centre of a new radical politics was expressed in several short political writings of the 1980s, as well as in his book TOWARDS 2000. Of his critical works, THE COUNTRY AND THE CITY, in particular, reflects this engagement with questions of nature, humanity and the historically developing relation between them. It also includes an explicit reflection on the questions of progress, retrospect and critique that are addressed in his more directly political writings. Reviewing this body of work in the light of Williams' background and political commitments, the chapter argues that he retains a unique importance for an eco-critical project which - especially in the USA - is less attentive than it needs to be to questions of class and history.