`titrebAn emerging field: social ecological economics. Cross-comparison of three recent books`/titrebThis paper is based on the critical reading and cross-comparison of three recent books published in the field of social ecological economics. We first start by briefly presenting the general architecture and main goals of the three books. We then highlight the main differences in the approaches developed by new resource economists, new environmental pragmatists and social ecological economists. Finally, we present in greater detail the perspective developed by social ecological economists, from an ontological, epistemological and methodological viewpoint. This perspective involves several topics that structure the debates and currently ongoing controversies in the field of ecological economics.