This book combines film studies with environmental history and politics, aiming to establish a cultural criticism informed by 'green' thought. David Ingram argues that Hollywood cinema has largely perpetuated romantic attitudes to nature and has played an important ideological role in the 'greenwashing' of ecological discourses.

The book accounts for the rise of environmental concerns in Hollywood cinema, and explores the ways in which attitudes to nature and the environment are constructed in a number of movies. It is divided into three sections: Wilderness in Hollywood Cinema; Wild Animals in Hollywood Cinema; Development and the Politics of Land Use.