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from the editor
| THIS ISSUE DIVIDES neatly into two parts. The first three essays focus on the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, while the last two examine global marine and riverine life over the past two centuries. |
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Each of the U.S.-based essays examines a neglected aspect of Progressive and post-Progressive environmental politics. Adam Rome ("Political Herm-aphrodites")—who is obviously recovering well from his four-year stint as editor of this journal!—explores how critics of the Progressive Era employed gender stereotypes to "effeminate," and thus politically denigrate, reform-minded male conservationists. Christopher Hamlin and John T. McGreevy ("The Greening of America") remind us that religious conservationism was not the exclusive domain of American Protestants; not only did groups such as the National Catholic Rural Life Conference grapple with many of the same questions as their Protestant neighbors, they often came up with distinctively Catholic responses. Albert Way ("Burned to Be Wild") offers an insightful glimpse into the life of Herbert Stoddard, a forester who developed many of the wildlife, fire, and ecological management techniques that later became associated with the name of his close friend Aldo Leopold. |
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It might be something of an exaggeration to claim that environmental historians are landlubbers, but it is certainly true that most researchers choose topics about terra firma and not about watery places. Darin Kinsey ("Seeding the Water as the Earth") and Jeffrey Bolster ("Opportunities in Marine Environmental History") are among the few who have taken their research into the sphere of the "non-terrestrial." Kinsey argues that our terrestrial bias has caused us largely to overlook an "aquacultural" revolution that took place in the world's rivers, a revolution that transformed the modern fishing industry just as industrialization transformed modern agriculture. Bolster, meanwhile, argues that the time has come to "historicize" the oceans and to focus more attention on the long-term ecological consequences of modern harvesting techniques. Readers can expect more "non-terrestrial" essays in upcoming issues. |
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Finally, the book review section has some new features. For the first time, we have included illustrations and, also for the first time, a film review (Al Gore's widely seen "An Inconvenient Truth," reviewed by Lisa Mighetto). |
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MARK CIOC
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