In Marx and Nature, Paul Burkett reconstructs Marx's approach to nature, society, and environmental crisis. This book shows that Marx's treatment of natural conditions possesses an inner logic, coherence, and analytical power that has not been previously recognized. Burkett shows that Marx's overriding concern with human emancipation impels him to approach nature from the standpoints of materialist history, sociology, and critical political economy.

Marx's value analysis, though, places him squarely in the camp of the growing number of ecological theorists questioning the ability of monetary and market-based calculations to adequately represent the natural conditions of human production and development.