New seminal environmental works. Nine review articles. - WZB

14 New Seminal Environmental Works
Natur und Macht. Eine Weltgeschichte der Umwelt
[ Nature and Power. A World History of the Environment ]
By Joachim Radkau
München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2002, 438 pp.
ISBN 3-406-48655-X.
A fine book, a significant book, but also a confusing one! Fine, because it
provides a good example of the art of printing at its best and is written in a
readable language. It is also a significant book, one of the author's main
books on an important topic; a book that absolutely had to be written. But
where is the best starting point - the Phoenicians, England's industrialisa-
tion, or perhaps the rise of the concept of "environment"? And how best
structure the great profusion of potential material - with an eye to cultural
history, geography, the environmental media, in terms of problems of wa-
ter, air, and soil?
Somehow the author has managed to get it done, in 340 pages of text, in 83
pages of references, and a 16-page index. But what about his working hy-
pothesis? In view of all the things that go into the making of a world his-
tory of the environment (thus the book's subtitle), or could be said on the
subject of nature and power (the book's main title), the reader might think,
it should be possible to know what is important and what is less important.
A theory would be needed - for without theory everything is, as the saying
goes, one-off - or at least a reasoned explanation of what distinguishes (and
to what extent) environmental history from history, world environmental
history from world history. If we are to discuss the issue of nature and