Agricultural History Review, Volume 67 Part 1 (2019), p. 152

The environment is at the forefront of public debate, although despite this there is often a lack of political will to address environmental issues. As a sub-discipline, environmental history has emerged only relatively recently in Europe compared to the USA. This pocket-sized book considers the emergence of the environment as a concept since 1948. The authors are leading environmental historians and the book originates from the inaugural World Congress of Environmental History. The prologue begins by posing thought-provoking questions: ‘Is it possible for the economy to grow without the environment being destroyed? Will our lifestyles impoverish the planet for our children and grandchildren? Is the world sick?’ (pp. 1–2). It continues by introducing the post-war backdrop to human perceptions of the environment, illustrated with notable defining events such as space exploration and the Chernobyl disaster. There follow seven discursive chapters.

The first chapter, ‘Road to survival’, begins by highlighting the significance of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring as a catalyst inspiring people’s interest in the environment as something man could alter rather than being in the background. Nevertheless it is argued that ‘The environment was an idea whose moment came earlier, whose story was first written in an earlier time’ (p. 8). There follows a discussion of events in the post-war period and influential works with it being further argued that: ‘The history of an idea, and particularly the idea of the environment, is also the history of a style of imagination, a history of sciences, and very much a history of politics’ (p. 14). Four dimensions of environment are proposed: future, expertise, trust in numbers, and scale and scalability. The notion of a ‘post-war environmental turn’ during the 1960s, reflected in governmental policy, is put forward, yet it is argued that aside from politics the ‘conceptual revolution’ ‘was silent, unsought, and largely unheralded’ (p. 24).

The second chapter, ‘Expertise for the future’, explores the rise of environmentalism as a social, political and media phenomenon during the 1960s and ’70s, whilst highlighting the derivation of the term ‘environment’ from French; Thomas Carlyle borrowed it in 1827 for a different meaning and it was widely used by writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Discussion returns to the environment as a global concern conceived during post-war reconstruction by American and Soviet scientists. The third chapter, ‘Resources for Freedom’, outlines how Malthusian thought influenced post-war thinking about the environment along with the development of modelling and predictive technology, and how links between statistics, ecology, demography, economics and geopolitics contributed to post-war understanding of the environment. In the 1960–70s writers like Garrett Hardin were inspired by space race thinking about the planets and much of the environmental debate at that time was concerned with global resources.

The fourth chapter, ‘Ecology on the march’, outlines how in the Australian and the US dustbowls during the 1930s pastoral farming systems were replaced with urban settlements heightening drought risk, soil erosion and the need for conservation of land, soil and wildlife. Hence emphasis is placed on the importance of ecology and ecological thinking regarding the stewardship of animals and land. Desertification crises necessitated the management of nature as increased output and productivity from the land was prioritized. By 1968 the Green Revolution in agriculture had led to greater research and applied technology. It is outlined how in particular ecology, which had nineteenth-century origins, sought to address concerns about the environment and world oceans whereas scientists studying animals tended to work in disciplines like zoology, anatomy, physiology, medicine and agriculture. Seemingly modern concepts such as ecosystem are shown to have a history; it was coined in 1928 by A. R. Clapham, a crop physiologist at the Rothamsted agricultural research station. It is pointed out that by the 1940s ecology and ecologists were making major contributions to the environment discourse as it was appreciated that animals and plants could impact on ecology.

In the twenty-first century, climate change is the foremost environmental issue. Therefore it seems appropriate that the fifth chapter, ‘Climate enters the environment’, examines how from the 1920s the discourse of climate and environment converged. As in earlier chapters, discussion is structured along the lines of notable interventions by leading figures. Climate has become an environmental issue in the last twenty years, whereas in the nineteenth century climate change science was part of different scientific disciplines. Like the earlier discussion of the term environment, the Greek origins of ‘climate’ are highlighted leading onto a general point that climate has been considered as essentially a local and regional phenomenon, only being recognized as a global issue relatively recently. There is an interesting section exploring work on climate and environmental warfare during the Cold War. It is argued that today, climate is central to the ‘globalizing narrative’ of environment. (p. 121).

Chapter six, ‘The Earth is one but the World is not’, explores the emergence of environmental politics since the 1960s with environmentalists addressing long-standing issues like protecting green space, ecological sites and combating pollution. By comparison, policy makers were more focused on economic development. The setting up of national and transnational environmental initiatives involved with nature conservation, such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Wildlife Fund and the individuals behind them are discussed, for instance the geographer Dudley Stamp. Likewise it is shown how climate and weather were not considered environmental until high-profile droughts in the late 1960–70s.

The last chapter, ‘Seeking a safe future’, begins by outlining how Earth system science emerged from environmental science in the 1970s. Parallels are drawn with earlier thinkers, namely Carl Linnaeus, before turning to the Anthropocene, a suggested geological epoch marking human impact on the Earth which raises similar questions as the idea of the environment. In synthesizing the arguments made throughout the book, three ages of environment are identified: the period 1948–72 when there was progress in science and technology associated with the Cold War, a second phase from about 1970 when the environment became the concern of governments and institutions followed by the widespread use of the term environment during the past two decades. The final forward-looking section suggests ways the humanities can engage with the environment, especially by bringing together narratives of human and non-human development, and addressing concepts or problems as stories to aid interpretation. Concluding that it has a history, the authors ask, conversely, ‘But does the environment have a future?’ (p. 180)

This book, written in an engaging narrative style with notes at the end, could perhaps have been more lavishly illustrated. Explicit reference is made to agriculture on only a few occasions, for example, with regards to the role of the agricultural science (p. 79) and there is clearly scope for further work. Nevertheless this is a highly recommended book that agricultural and rural historians will appreciate the significance of in tracing the history of the environment. It will be of interest to a wide academic readership, including historians of the environment, ideas, politics, science and technology. More importantly, this book deserves to be read by the wider public as it explains how perceptions of the environment have evolved relative to the history of the twentieth century. Understanding this history can inform contemporary responses to present and future environmental issues.