Berghahn Books

The Culture of German Environmentalism portrays the breadth of environmentalism in Germany through an analysis of the Green Party, its “green” literature, media, and politics.

Life as a Hunt chronicles the history of the Valley Bisa people, their evolving landscapes and knowledge, and the ‘conservation battlefield’ their homeland has become.

Contextualizing Disaster presents “highly visible” disasters as well as “slow and hidden” disasters, and how different parties involved in recovery processes contextualize them.

The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspective takes an anthropological approach to Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast. It portrays a historically globalized region which has adapated creatively to major transformations and still remains a major actor within global networks.

The Environment and Sustainable Development in the New Central Europe highlights creative solutions being implemented in Central and East Central Europe to overcome environmental problems and ensure sustainable development.

Beginning in the pre-modern world, the Volga and Mississippi Rivers both served as critical trade routes connecting cultures in an extensive exchange network, while also sustaining populations through their surrounding wetlands and bottomlands. In modern times, “Mother Volga” and the “Father of Waters” became integral parts of national identity, contributing to a sense of Russian and American exceptionalism. Rivers, Memory, and Nation-Building discusses their histories, through which we derive a more nuanced view of human interaction with the environment, which adds another lens to our understanding of the past.

Earthquakes occur along fault lines, sometimes with disastrous effects. These disturbances can significantly influence urban development, as seen in the aftermath of two earthquakes in Italy. Fault Lines follows the history of these places before and after their destruction, explores plans and developments that preceded the disasters, and the urbanism that emerged from the ruins.

The history of the Swiss National Park is told for the first time in Creating Wilderness. The deliberate reinterpretation of the American idea of the national park, as implemented in Yellowstone, was innovative and radical, but its consequences were not limited to Switzerland. The Swiss park became the prime example of a “scientific national park,” thereby influencing the course of national parks worldwide.

Powerless Science? looks at complex historical, social, and political dynamics, made up of public controversies, environmental and health crises, economic interests, and political responses, and demonstrates how and to what extent scientific knowledge about toxicants has been caught between scientific, economic, and political imperatives.

National parks are one of the most important and successful institutions in global environmentalism. Shifting the focus from the usual emphasis on national parks in the United States, Civilizing Nature adopts an historical and transnational perspective on the global geography of protected areas and its changes over time.