The ideal river: how control of nature shaped the international order / Joanne Yao.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yao, Joanne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental management--International cooperation.

Environmental management.

Environmental policy--International cooperation.

Environmental policy.

Environmentalism--International relations.

Environmentalism.

International relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : digital file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

data file

Summary:

Environmental politics has traditionally been a peripheral concern for IR theory, but increasing alarm over global environmental challenges has elevated international society's relationship with the natural world into the theoretical limelight. IR theory's engagement with environmental politics, however, has largely focused on interstate cooperation in the late twentieth century, with few works exploring the longstanding historical links between the management of natural resources and the foundations of the modern international order. This book examines nineteenth-century efforts to establish international commissions on three transboundary rivers - the Rhine, the Danube, and the Congo. It charts how the ambition to tame nature (both the natural world and human nature) became an international standard of rational and civilized authority and informed our geographical imagination of the international. This notion of domination over nature was central to the emergence of the early international order in the way it shaped three core IR concepts: the territorial sovereign state, imperial hierarchies, and international organizations. The book contributes to environmental politics and IR by highlighting how the relationship between society and nature, rather than being a peripheral concern, has always lain at the heart of international politics.

Contents:

Introduction: The ideal river

1 The taming of nature, legitimate authority, and international order

2 Taming the international highway: constructing the Rhine

3 The 1815 Congress of Vienna and the oldest continuous interstate institution

4 Disciplining the connecting river: constructing the Danube

5 The 856 Treaty of Paris and the first international organization

6 Civilizing the imperial river: constructing the Congo

7 The 1884-85 Berlin Conference and the international organization that never was

History is a river: the taming of nature into the twenty-first century

Conclusion: The strong brown god of the Anthropocene

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Feb 2026).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher-supplied metadata; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9781526154392 (electronic book)

9781526154392

1526154390

OCLC:

1308489123