Germany's nature : cultural landscapes and environmental history / Thomas Lekan, Thomas Zeller, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lekan, Thomas M.

Zeller, Thomas, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forests and forestry--Germany--History.

Forests and forestry.

Nature conservation--Germany--History.

Nature conservation.

Landscape protection--Germany--History.

Landscape protection.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 266 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Germany boasts one of the strongest environmental records in the world. The Rhine River is cleaner than it has been in decades, recycling is considered a civic duty, and German manufacturers of pollution-control technology export their products around the globe. Yet, little has been written about the country's remarkable environmental history, and even less of that research is available in English. Now for the first time, a survey of the country's natural and cultural landscapes is available in one volume. Essays by leading scholars of history, geography, and the social sciences move beyond the Green movement to uncover the enduring yet ever-changing cultural patterns, social institutions, and geographic factors that have sustained Germany's relationship to its land. Unlike the American environmental movement, which is still dominated by debates about wilderness conservation and the retention of untouched spaces, discussions of the German landscape have long recognized human impact as part of the "natural order." Drawing on a variety of sites as examples, including forests, waterways, the Autobahn, and natural history museums, the essays demonstrate how environmental debates in Germany have generally centered on the best ways to harmonize human priorities and organic order, rather than on attempts to reify wilderness as a place to escape from industrial society. Germany's Nature is essential reading for students and professionals working in the fields of environmental studies, European history, and the history of science and technology.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Landscape of German Environmental History

Chapter 1. Germany as a Focus of European “Particularities” in Environmental History

Chapter 2. Conviction and Constraint: Hydraulic Engineers and Agricultural Amelioration Projects in Nineteenth-Century Prussia

Chapter 3. A Sylvan People: Wilhelmine Forestry and the Forest as a Symbol of Germandom

Chapter 4. Forestry and the German Imperial Imagination: Conflicts over Forest Use in German East Africa

Chapter 5. Organic Machines: Cars, Drivers, and Nature from Imperial to Nazi Germany

Chapter 6. Biology—Heimat—Family: Nature and Gender in German Natural History Museums around 1900

Chapter 7. Indication and Identification: On the History of Bird Protection in Germany, 1800–1918

Chapter 8. Protecting Nature between Democracy and Dictatorship: The Changing Ideology of the Bourgeois Conservationist Movement, 1925–1935

Chapter 9. Protecting Nature in a Divided Nation: Conservation in the Two Germanys, 1945–1972

Notes on Editors and Contributors

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

1-280-94715-2

9786610947157

0-8135-3770-3

OCLC:

806204716