| Book Review | Environmental History, 13.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to Enviromental History online. About 213 words from this article are provided below; about 426 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to Environmental History, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the Environmental History, you can:: • get subscription information here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of Environmental History (8.1-present).
Instititutions can:: • get subscription information here to receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | Environmental History, 13.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Decline of Nature: Environmental History and the Western Worldview. By Gilbert LaFreniere. Bethesda, MD, Dublin, Ireland, and London: Academica Press, 2007. xv + 457 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. Cloth $74.95.
When it was first published in 1918, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West provided an intellectual jolt to a German populace stunned by military defeat and financial collapse. In his magnum opus, Spengler summarily dispensed with previous providential and progressive explanations of long-term change, replacing them with a cyclical theory that outlined the assent and decay of the world's great cultures. With his jarring declaration that Faustian (Western) Civilization had reached its historical twilight, Spengler inspired a strain of cultural pessimism (Kulturpessimismus), which would subsequently thrive during the Weimar Republic.	1
In The Decline of Nature: Environmental History and the Western Worldview, Gilbert F. LaFreniere adopts Spengler's paradigm of cyclical history as a model for synthesizing "an analysis of the meaning of history (i.e., patterns of providence, progress, and cycles) with an environmental history of the Western world (European civilization and its colonies)" (p. xv). Following in Spengler's footsteps, the author attempts to demonstrate the evolution of hubristic attitudes towards nature, which have transformed the "West" into a civilization in decline.	. . .

There are about 426 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.