Janet Biehl

Who is Janet Biehl?

Janet Biehl is a writer associated with social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. In 1986 she attended the Institute for Social Ecology and there began a collaborative relationship with Bookchin, working intensively with him over the next two decades in the explication of social ecology from their home in Burlington, Vermont. From 1987 to 2000 she and Bookchin co-wrote and co-published the theoretical newsletter Green Perspectives, later renamed Left Green Perspectives.

She is the editor and compiler of The Murray Bookchin Reader; the author of The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism and Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics; and coauthor of Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience. She has also authored numerous articles about or related to Bookchin’s thought, especially libertarian municipalism, social ecology and eco-feminism. Bookchin considered her The Murray Bookchin Reader to be the best introduction to his work.

Biehl is a supporter of the Kurdish rights movement in Turkey.