Cold war ecology : forests, farms, and people in the East German landscape, 1945-1989 / Arvid Nelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nelson, Arvid, 1951-

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale agrarian studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forests and forestry--Political aspects--Germany (East)--History.

Forests and forestry.

Forest policy--Germany (East)--History.

Forest policy.

Agriculture and politics--Germany (East)--History.

Agriculture and politics.

Human ecology--Germany (East)--History.

Human ecology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 315 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

East Germany, its economy, and its society were in decline long before the country's political collapse in the late 1980's. The clues were there in the natural landscape, Arvid Nelson argues in this groundbreaking book, but policy analysts were blind to them. Had they noted the record of the leadership's values and goals manifest in the landscape, they wouldn't have hailed East Germany as a Marxist-Leninist success story. Nelson sets East German history within the context of the landscape history of two centuries to underscore how forest and ecosystem change offered a reliable barometer to the health and stability of the political system that governed them. Cold War Ecology records how East German leaders' indifference to human rights and their disregard for the landscape affected the rural economy, forests, and population. This lesson from history suggests new ways of thinking about the health of ecosystems and landscapes, Nelson shows, and he proposes assessing the stability of modern political systems based on the environment's system qualities rather than on political leaders' goals and beliefs.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Figures

Conversions

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note on Terminology

1. Prologue

2. Landscape and Culture

3. Initial Conditions and Reparations

4. ''A Law Would Be Good'': Land Reform

5. The Landscape's ''Socialist Transformation'' and Flight from the Countryside (1949-1961)

6. The Landscape Transformed (1960-1961)

7. Cybermarxism and Innovation (1961-1971)

8. The Grüneberg Era and the Triumph of Industrial Production Methods (1971-1989)

9. Reunification

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-297) and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

1-281-72251-0

9786611722517

0-300-13030-9

OCLC:

923591463