The principal theme of this work is the degradation of the environment. While the topic is of certain general -- universal -- interest, it had little currency in 1970 when the Italian edition first came out.

Maldonado explores the concept of the "human environment" -- treating its roots in philosophy and in ecological science. He also regards a third source--the "intuitive" observations which reveal aspects of the "mediating membrane" of consciousness. For example, the literary/artist studies done by Freud show how this is done. [5]

Maldonado is one of the first to suggest that our present environment is both "human and natural" and is NOT arbitrary (or divine). He also shows that the East/West "conception of the world dichotomy" is an oversimplification. He reveals Marxism as a descendent of German Idealism.

The analysis is filled with bold lines drawn as prelude to "except for one thing". Example: "One thing...seems clear and uncontestable: Man has never been and never will be able to live without concrete projection." And his fundamental argument: "The rejection of concrete projection also implies the rejection of design planning ["progettazione"]." And then: "All of this is rather obvious...Nevertheless, all of this can be more or less mystified with impunity, except for one thing--no one can deny that design and planning ["progettazione"] are the most solid nexus joining man to reality and history." [9]

Maldonado's arguments are learned, logical and fact-driven. He is not shy about relationships between the "unequivocal" human will and the so-called need for projection. [8-9]

He fixes labels with impunity -- the "banal preconceptions of Spenglerian cosmography" in the last century [9]--but remains dialectical. He invokes Vico's "ability to make" as the link between the verum and the factum. Unfortunately we then come across: "Surely making and designing do not mutulally presuppose each other, but then they are very rarely found independent of one another, and only very rarely do they not participate in the same volitional and factual modality of acting within reality." [10] Little wonder, we agree, when he suggests that "The utopians, of course, have chosen to flee forward." [11]

Half of this book is "Notes" on the text. They are like a scrap-book of the author's reflections and a bibliographical resources. This edition contains an added Postscript -- "no one cares about a future so devoid of future"--cautioning us against finding metahistorical factors responsible while ignoring historical factors. He sees the "ecological fashion" already in full eclipse: "the noise of the printing presses in its service is rendering it inaudible". ( )