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Book Review
| Northern Europe: An Environmental History. By Tamara Whited, Jens Engels, Richard Hoffmann, Hilde Ibsen, and Wybren Verstegen. Nature and Human Societies series, edited by Mark R. Stoll. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005. xvii + 275 pp. Illustrations, maps, glossary, bibliographic essay, index. Cloth $85.00.
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| Tamara Whited has filled a frustrating gap in the literature with this fine textbook. Until now, environmental historians developing courses in world or European environmental history lacked one succinct introduction to the key issues and problems of the region. Lecturers, graduate students, and even the best undergraduates will find this installment in ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series to be an informative reference work. All the basic elements for a semester course on European environmental history can be found here; even better for researchers and lecture-writers, the authors have provided a glossary, a very useful bibliographic essay, and a timeline of key events. |
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The textbook begins in the Paleolithic and concludes with the emergence of Green movements after 1945. Its subject matter is limited to areas of northwestern Europe north of the Alps and west of the Oder River. Whited and fellow contributors (Jens Engels, Richard Hoffmann, Hilde Ibsen, and Wybren Verstegen) guide the reader through several centuries of environmental change, nimbly explaining the ecological significance of the Neolithic Revolution, attitudes toward nature expressed by medieval Christianity, early modern Malthusian constraints on growth, the imperial conquest of "ghost acres" that fueled Europe's emergence as a global power, and the industrial welfare state's varied consequences for ecosystems. The book concludes with three case studies focused on drainage in the Netherlands, the German Green Party, and Scandinavian conservation. |
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At its best, this overview of northern Europe and its environment offers perspectives on European history seldom considered. Take, for example, cattle drives from the Hungarian plains to German markets or timber rafts floating down the Rhine River in the eighteenth century. At such moments in the text, national particularities fade to the background and intriguing, transnational narratives of ecological change and market expansion come to the fore. |
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As useful and thought-provoking as this volume can be, the text can frustrate the reader. The shared authorship of the text provides for depth of coverage, but a single author may have been better able to unite the text into a satisfying whole. What holds together an environmental history of "Northern Europe?" Did a distinct attitude toward nature evolve in northwestern Europe that cannot be found elsewhere in the western hemisphere or even in southern Europe? The editors chose to limit their task geographically and thus did not include the Mediterranean or Eastern Europe. This decision is understandable, but the authors might have lost an opportunity to explore key connections or make interesting comparisons. Given that the East had long been a space of expansion for western European powers, can one really exclude these regions from the narrative? A more thorough comparison of the paths of development taken in the communist East and the liberal West also would have been welcome. |
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This multi-authored textbook thus lacks a strong thesis or uniting narrative that frames European environmental history for undergraduates unfamiliar with the field. Nonetheless, the text will prove invaluable as an introduction to northwestern Europe, especially for informed readers hoping to better understand a region central to environmental transformations well outside its borders. |
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Scott Moranda is assistant professor of history at SUNY-Cortland and received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005. He is currently revising his dissertation into a manuscript on the relationship between outdoor recreation, landscape planning, and environmental protection in East Germany from 1945 to 1989. |
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