"This book is not so much a contribution to scholarship on Romanticism as it is to economics. Its aim is to use Romantic notions of nature and human nature in order to criticize classical economic theories and to lay the foundations for a history of ecological economics. Becker's first premise is that classical economics is incapable of developing sustainable economic models because it situates human beings outside of nature while at the same time treating the self interested exploitation of natural resources and the market economy as derived from the laws of nature (46; 159). The second premise is that ecological economic models are often equally flawed because ecological economics does not yet have an integrative notion of nature (48). Such a notion would view the human being as part of nature and would reject self interest as the fundamental human trait (48 f.).

Becker's examination of Romanticism is motivated by the desire to find historical precursors to ecological economics and to provide a philosophical backbone for this relatively new discipline. The first two chapters justify the approach, define economic terms, and situate ecological models within the field of economics. Chapters 3 to 5 examine Novalis's, Wordsworth's, and Thoreau's notions of nature, human nature, and the economy. Chapter 6 is a contrastive summary with a view to the applicability of Romanticism to ecological economics.

The book appears to be both convincing and flawed. It does seem to fill a real gap in the economic disciplines. Becker succeeds in questioning classical economic thinking through the lens of Romanticism. Chapters 3 to 5 show that Romanticism constitutes a parallel history to the established history of economics. This is particularly convincing in Becker's outline of Wordsworth's implied references to Adam Smith and TR. Malthus, and Thoreau's explicit references to Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Jean-Baptiste Say. Becker also finds within Romanticism alternative notions of nature and human nature. All three Romantic writers seem to reject the definition of nature as a raw resource and the notion of human self interest as "naturally" driving and being driven by market forces. Instead they view nature as "ein eigenes Selbst, mit dem der Mensch in eine Beziehung treten muss" (91). In Novalis, such a relationship is established through love and unfolds as a poetical self fulfillment of the human being through nature and vice versa. The analogous terms in Wordsworth are "active principle" and "wisdom passiveness" (129). Thoreau's model proposes the limitation of human needs to those which are "necessary for life" (224), a mystical approach to nature, and a reliance on uncultivated wilderness instead of an alteration of nature to meet human surplus needs."