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Book Review
| Acid Rain Science and Politics in Japan: A History of Knowledge and Action toward Sustainability. By Kenneth E. Wilkening. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. vii + 322 pp. Tables, charts, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, $19.00.
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| No country has been dealing with acid rain for as long as Japan has, and because of the elemental connection between Japan and rain, perhaps no other country feels its effects at such a culturally intimate level. Wilkening explains, "Japan is a culture of rain like the Native American Hopi culture is a culture of sun or the Arctic Inuit culture is a culture of snow" (p. 1). Accordingly, Japan was the first country to undertake research and policy making to deal with the effects of acid rain and early established itself as a world leader in these areas. Despite the narrow focus implied by the title, Wilkening succeeds at showing the broader relevance of his work. Not only will those interested in Japan's history, culture, science and technology, environment, leadership, and politics be served by this book, but also those studying international environmental policy and the interplay of science and policy making in environmental problem-solving in non-country-specific contexts. |
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The Meiji Restoration of 1868 marked the beginning of the end for the sustainable purity of Japan's rain, and since then Japan has been striving to re-attain it through science and policy making. The book traces these efforts chronologically, breaking them into five "environmental eras" and six "acid deposition periods." From its initial forays into copper smelting, through its postwar reconstruction and industrialization, to the present, Japan's acid deposition has developed from a local to a national to an East Asia-wide, transboundary air-pollution problem. This structure is logical and helpful, enabling the book's further use as a reference for particular periods of Japanese history. This is the first book to detail Japan's acid deposition history, and together with the extensive notes and references sections, contains more scholarship than has ever before been compiled in this area. |
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Early on, the author's use of scientifically technical language indicates that this is no ordinary history text. Indeed, Wilkening admits he is not a historian and did not originally intend to write an environmental history. He is a scientist and international policy analyst who, in the process of researching "the role of science in Japan's leadership position on the transboundary air pollution issue in East Asia" necessarily got pulled deeper and deeper into Japan's acid deposition history (p. 5). He found essential connections between Japan's history and its contemporary leadership status in environmental science and policy making. While covering a broad time span and employing historical methodology, Wilkening cautions that there is nonetheless an "unavoidable bias toward the sciences," and that "those not well versed in environmental science will find some portions of the book difficult reading" (p. 6). Most undergraduate audiences would be challenged by this text, which is aimed primarily at scholars in science and policy fields. However, lay readers armed with the book's abbreviations and acronyms list would be equipped to approach the text if its broader purposes and applications are kept in mind. Just as Wilkening found history unavoidable for a scientist's comprehension of his topic, so science may be unavoidable for the historian's comprehension of it. This book paves the way. |
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K. Gwen Beacham teaches in the History and Global Perspectives departments at Principia College, where she also leads study-abroad trips to Asia, South America, and Oceania. |
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