|
|
|
Woods and Warfare in World History
J. R. Mcneill
| ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIANS have slowly come around to the idea that their purview extends to the study of war and military organizations. For much of the last five thousand years, most societies took the possibility of warfare quite seriously, and conducted their affairs accordingly. The principal duty of the state, in most cases, was to protect its subjects from enemy attack. Normally, the promise of protection was what legitimized the exactions states imposed. Until the nineteenth century, most of the revenues that states collected went to their militaries. In this light, it should come as no surprise that war and military organization routinely played a major role in environmental history. |
1
|
|
Military concerns and the prospect of war affected land- and resource-use policy, such as the preservation of hunting grounds in imperial China, the maintenance of horse pastures in British India, or the creation of a strategic petroleum reserve in the United States. These concerns also had unintended effects on trends in demography and disease, and they influenced the way people conceived of parts of nature, such as iron, coal, horses, or mosquitoes. Within the welter of bonds between the military and the environment, one of the most important was that of forests and woodlands. |
2
|
|
For better and for worse, both woods and warfare are fundamental factors in human life, and have been for a very long time. Humankind evolved in parklike savannas of East Africa, from hominid ancestors who had lived in forests. We have used woodlands, and to some extent have been shaped by woodland environments, for millions of years. Warfare, at least on small scales, also extends far into the human past, and, to judge by the behavior of modern chimpanzees, probably occupied the energies and shortened the lives of our hominid ancestors too. So, in all likelihood, we and our forebears have been making war amid woodlands for at least a million years.1 |
3
|
|
War is one of the favorite topics of historians and has attracted some of the best, from Thucydides onward. Forests, forestry, and deforestation also have a distinguished, if rather smaller, historiography. Here I propose to explore some of the links and intersections between these two historical subjects. |
4
|
|
Before I proceed, it may be helpful to explain some of the things that I amnot trying to do. I will not argue that warfare has been of crucial importance in the history of forests generally, nor will I contend that forests have been a major influence upon military history generally. My goal is more modest: I will try to show that at certain times and places, the links between military affairs and forests were significant, either for warfare or for forests, or for both. I also hope that some of the points of intersection between forest history and military history prove interesting and instructive, even when not of central importance for larger narratives. |
5
|
|
In pursuing this theme I will range over some thirty centuries of history and venture around the world, from New Zealand and Japan to Britain and Brazil. This, then, is an excursion into world history, in which I hope to point out some large-scale patterns that transcend the borders and boundaries of particular eras and epochs, as well as of specific societies, states, and civilizations. |
. . . |
There are about 11105 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
