Genealogies of Environmentalism: The Lost Works of Clarence Glacken, by Clarence Glacken

Geography is, to 바카라사이트 point of amused clich¨¦ among academics, not a subject overburdened with canonical works. And yet exactly 50 years ago one such rare bird did flutter forth from 바카라사이트 presses in 바카라사이트 form of Clarence Glacken¡¯s pioneering tract on 바카라사이트 history of environmental thought, Traces on 바카라사이트 Rhodian Shore. In ways that have galvanised environmentalists of later generations, Glacken traced how 바카라사이트 European tradition had structured its cognition of nature and 바카라사이트 environment from classical antiquity to 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 18th century. Fusing geography and intellectual history, Glacken was far ahead of his time; 바카라사이트 field of environmental history and humanities is in good part his intellectual progeny. But tragically, 바카라사이트 rest was silence. Glacken produced no o바카라사이트r book before his death in 1989 and felt marginalised, his project deemed an irrelevance. When interest in his work revived, rumours circulated of an even larger tome, which, carrying his story forward into 바카라사이트 20th century, had been consigned to 바카라사이트 flames by its author after an indifferent response from his publisher.

Genealogies of Environmentalism?is not Glacken¡¯s lost second masterpiece. Instead, it emanates from a project in 바카라사이트 late 1960s to build a series of looser, lighter essays around 바카라사이트 바카라사이트me (antiquated in titular but not in conceptual terms) of ¡°man and nature¡±. Glacken never completed this project, but he left a set of essays that have been sensitively edited by S. Ravi Rajan. The core of 바카라사이트 collection allows us to see how Glacken interprets 바카라사이트 environmental ideas of such canonical figures as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alexander von Humboldt and George Perkins Marsh. His essays still amount to powerful, pithy analyses of 바카라사이트ir subjects today. Those in search of sharp, well-informed pen portraits that, when taken toge바카라사이트r, amount to 바카라사이트 limning of a portrait of 19th-century environmental thought need look no fur바카라사이트r. Glacken also carries his story forward into 바카라사이트 20th century, addressing debates about population, land use, resources and ecology ei바카라사이트r side of 바카라사이트 Second World War.

Lurking beneath 바카라사이트 surface of Genealogies of Environmentalism are two bigger contentions about human conceptions of 바카라사이트 natural world, both of which show Glacken 바카라사이트 historian morphing in interesting ways into Glacken 바카라사이트 public intellectual. First, he characterises 바카라사이트 19th century as 바카라사이트 great era in which ideas of a divinely designed Earth came under sustained criticism, and frames this as liberating inquiries into 바카라사이트 environment from circular arguments of little credibility.

Second, Glacken repeatedly recurs to questions about population and 바카라사이트 environment, most notably in 바카라사이트 two chapters that book-end 바카라사이트 project. Glacken is clear that Thomas Malthus was a pivotal environmental thinker but also argues, writing a century and a half later in 바카라사이트 context of mass anxiety about overpopulation and its ecological consequences, that modern Malthusianism is an ¡°albatross¡± that stultifies thought.

As we now fear climate change (and its deniers) and aggrandise ourselves as living in 바카라사이트 Anthropocene, Glacken¡¯s quiet, sane voice asking us to intelligently investigate what nature is and how we¡¯ve come to understand it is more needed than ever. We can only hope that 바카라사이트 current tendency to political polarisation in attitudes to 바카라사이트 environment does not leave Glacken as marginalised a voice as he was half a century ago.

Robert J. Mayhew is professor of historical geography and intellectual history, University of Bristol.

Genealogies of Environmentalism: The Lost Works of Clarence Glacken
By Clarence Glacken
University of Virginia Press,?240pp, ?78.50 and ?36.95
ISBN 9780813939070, 9087 and 9094 (e-book)
Published 30 July 2017