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.
Managing the Unknown offers essays that show that deficient knowledge is a far more pervasive challenge in resource history than conventional readings suggest. Furthermore, environmental ignorance does not inevitably shrink with the march of scientific progress. This volume combines insights from different continents as well as the seas in between and thus sketches outlines of an emerging global resource history.
Disrupted Landscapes focuses on the emblematic case of postsocialist Romania, in which the transition from collectivization to privatization profoundly reshaped the nation’s forests, farmlands, and rivers.
The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. Cover.
Gissibl, Bernhard. The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016.
In case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of bicycling and waste recycling—tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today.
In his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ Pope Francis invokes all humans, believers and non-believers alike, to work together to save the earth from environmental degradation and create a fair and sustainable future for all.
Should Trees Have Standing? continues to serve as the definitive statement as to why trees, oceans, animals, and the environment as a whole should be bestowed with legal rights.
The Little Desert dispute of 1968 was a watershed in Australian environmental politics, marking the beginning of a new consciousness of nature.
