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interview
joachim radkau
Joachim Radkau is one of Europe's best-known environmental historians. Since becoming an environmental historian avant la lettre in the 1970s, he has published widely on a broad array of topics. In this interview, he talks about the development of his interests, afterthoughts on his books, unintended ventures into politics, and the development of the scholarly community in Germany and Europe. This year, Cambridge University Press published an English edition of his world environmental history, "Nature and Power." Radkau is due to retire from Bielefeld University next year.
Frank Uekoetter: What do nuclear power, forest history, and Max Weber have in common?
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Joachim Radkau: What a question to begin with! But you are right: I may hold a record for jumping topics.
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Uekoetter: And the list is not even nearly complete. You also worked on the history of technology, environmental movements, the history of nervousness, and countless smaller topics like the history of biking. Was there any kind of blueprint behind your agenda?
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Radkau: No, no, no. I lived my academic life without an overarching plan. At times I felt that my academic career was a patchwork without a unifying theme—especially when I read the interview with Donald Worster in the January 2008 issue. But in retrospect, I am more and more convinced that it all comes together somehow.
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Uekoetter: Compared with the career of American scholars, who usually started their work in graduate school, you look like a rather late convert to environmental history. Your academic education had nothing to do with environmentalism: you studied in Münster, Berlin, and Hamburg, did your PhD on the German emigration during the Nazi Era, then went on to write a book on German industry and policy together with the émigré George Hallgarten. You were 30 years old, you had written three books, and none dealt with environmental issues.
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Radkau: You are right. There is certainly no natural evolution toward environmental history in my career. However, the first significant history book, which I read at the age of 14 or 15, was an abridged version of Arnold Toynbee's Study in History, with its famous theme of challenge and response—and the challenge often came from nature. In retrospect, I can probably claim a secret desire to produce a similar synthesis of history and nature, with a wide view across human history. At that time I also read Herodotus, where history and geography are intrinsically intertwined. I also inherited a certain sentiment for nature from my mother, who came from a youth movement background. So looking back, I can read a certain teleology into my career.
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Uekoetter: Remarkably, none of these inspirations has to do with modern environmentalism. I take it you had no "Earth Day moment" around 1970?
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Radkau: It was certainly more of a private sentiment. But when the environmental movement became visible in the early 1970s, I quickly felt that it struck a chord in me, that was my movement. I had a different feeling during the student rebellion in 1968. I was not inactive and certainly had some fun, but I never felt that the Shah was one of our key problems. I was also a dedicated hiker, I loved to ride my bike, and I always felt a deep aversion toward mass motorization. So when environmentalists began to push these issues, I had a feeling that they were targeting the real problems.
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