| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Susan R. Schrepfer and Philip Scranton, editors. Industrializing Organisms: Introducing Evolutionary History. (Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture, volume 5.) New York: Routledge. 2004. Pp. ix, 275. Cloth $90.00, paper $24.95.
During the past decade, environmental historians and historians of technology have increasingly turned their attention to the common ground shared by their two fields of study. Looking to expand the scope of this historiographic focus, Edmund Russell asked the readers of the on-line discussion group Envirotech if it made sense to consider animals as technology, given the extent to which numerous creatures had been deliberately manipulated by humans to serve human ends. This provocative question triggered an avalanche of exchanges. It also prompted Susan R. Schrepfer and Philip Scranton to harness these enthusiasms in a serious and tangible manner, initially through a conference—in which participants were asked to consider the technological dimensions of plants, as well as animals—and subsequently through their coedited book.	1
The editors invited Russell to write the book's introduction, and he has done a superb job of erecting a theoretical framework for this path-breaking collection, as well as offering a bounty of suggestions for future research. He challenges scholars to think anew about the reciprocal influences of technology and the environment, suggesting that we establish a new field of study—that of "evolutionary history"—which concerns itself with "the role of evolution in the human past." Because "humans have shaped the evolution of other species," he explains, "such intervention has significantly changed both humans and other species" (p. 2).	. . .

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