The seven years between the first edition and this one have made the relevance and urgency of political ecology a difficult thing to determine. On the one hand, the field has grown so dramatically, and in so many directions, that it is even easier to say of this contested enterprise that it has become too diffuse to matter. References to “political ecology” in the Web of Science database have more than doubled in the intervening years but now reflect a huge range of approaches. One might think that political ecology has finally “jumped the shark,” a phrase from the television industry suggesting the creative end of a franchise. I am sympathetic with those who may hurriedly wish to get on with the “next thing” as well as those who are still not sure what political ecology is, let alone whether it has a purchase on a special kind of explanation.