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From Jungle to Rainforest

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From Jungle to Rainforest Kelly Enright. The Maximum of Wilderness: The Jungle in the American Imagination. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. 200 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8139-3228-6. Reviewed by Megan Raby Published on H-Environment (May, 2012) Commissioned by Dolly Jørgensen (University of Stavanger) In the twentieth century, Americans increas‐ jungle had long been imagined as a haunt of dan‐ ingly encountered tropical forests through popu‐ ger and adventure, Enright argues that antimod‐ lar culture--in print and flm--and through the ernist Americans began to project onto the jungle consumption of tropical plant commodities--like their hopes of escaping from and healing the ills bananas and rubber. Most Americans rarely expe‐ of an overcivilized society. Ultimately, Enright rienced these forests face-to-face, but those who posits a shift in American discourse from "the jun‐ did played a key role in shaping broader Ameri‐ gle" to "the rainforest" by the latter half of the can conceptions of the so-called jungle. In The twentieth century, connoting a new emphasis on Maximum of Wilderness, a revised version of her biological diversity and natural balance. Tropical Rutgers dissertation (2009), Kelly Enright explores forests thus transformed from "a place that en‐ the shifting meanings of the jungle in the Ameri‐ dangered human lives" to "an endangered place can imagination from the 1910s through the 1950s invested with the power to save human lives" (p. by examining the writings of numerous natural‐ 7). ist-popularizers. The frst chapter begins by following the emi‐ Enright argues that American travelers ap‐ nent American wilderness advocates John Muir proached the jungle through the lens of "wilder‐ and Theodore Roosevelt on their respective end- ness," a concept with deep roots in American en‐ of-career journeys to the Amazon. For Enright, vironmental thinking, not to mention its founda‐ Roosevelt stands as a quintessential conservation‐ tional status within the historiography of environ‐ ist, seeing the jungle as a site of recreation, a mental history. The jungle, Enright contends, act‐ strenuous test of masculinity, and a new frontier ed as a wilderness beyond American shores, a awaiting development. Conversely, Muir repre‐ more wild and untouched nature than those rem‐ sents a preservationist approach to the jungle, en‐ nants preserved in U.S. National Parks. While the visioning it as one of the last refuges of true, un‐ H-Net Reviews touched wilderness and a place for spiritual re‐ able Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Natural‐ newal. Throughout the book, Enright periodically ist (2004). Enright's use of the preservationist/con‐ returns to these contrasting understandings of the servationist distinction, embodied by Muir and jungle as wilderness to frame the diverse person‐ Roosevelt, helps to knit together a loosely connect‐ alities she includes in the narrative. ed set of historical actors. Unfortunately, this di‐ Chapter 2 shifts to the African expeditions of chotomy is not seriously problematized, in spite the wildlife flmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson, of longstanding criticism. After all, Richard White about whom Enright has previously written a bi‐ argued that this dichotomy had "come under at‐ ography (Osa and Martin: For the Love of Adven‐ tack and begun to crumble" over two decades ago. ture [2011]). Analyzing flms like Congorilla [1] Using preservation/conservation as the prima‐ (1932), in which tropical wildlife was portrayed as ry analytical touchstone tends to have a fattening peaceful and familial, Enright describes how the effect on these historical actors' complex intellec‐ Johnsons domesticated the jungle for American tual positions. audiences. Likewise, the zoologist William Beebe, All seven subjects, whether they were consid‐ subject of the third chapter, made jungle wildlife ered professional scientists or not, had significant accessible though his exhibits at the Bronx Zoo involvement in both scientific and popular cul‐ and extensive popular and scientific writings. ture, and often worked consciously to blur the Beebe is the keystone of Enright's argument about lines between these realms. It should be noted a transition to a rainforest ideal, because his expe‐ that Enright's focus is on situating these fgures riences in British Guiana (present-day Guyana) within American popular culture, not within the encouraged him to buck the trend toward scientif‐ intellectual history of tropical ecology. Therefore, ic specialization and instead explore the breadth there are only a few general connections with the of the forest's diversity of wildlife. Finally, in secondary literature of the history of biology. For chapter 4, Enright uses the plant explorer David example, Beebe's article "Fauna of Four Square Fairchild and the ethnobotanist Richard Evans Feet of Jungle Debris" (1916) is approached as a Schultes as examples of how the jungle became an celebration of "the jungle as a place of mystery" object of (literal) consumption. By bringing, re‐ (p. 97). Enright does not specifically discuss the spectively, tropical fruits and medicines into the paper's relationship with the development of eco‐ American mainstream, Enright argues that logical practices or the emergence of conceptions Fairchild and Schultes helped to transform the of species richness. This emphasis is understand‐ market for rainforest products into a way to "con‐ able, but the relationship between popular and sume conservation" (p. 146). scientific conceptions of tropical forests, including Enright's accounts of these fascinating char‐ how they may have differed through time, is not acters are entertaining and highly readable. Giv‐ closely examined. In fact, she does not explain the en the short length of the book (154 pages), how‐ origins of the term "rainforest" within ecology, ever, deeper, archive-based analyses of her sub‐ and the particular circumstances surrounding its jects' feld experiences and environmental emergence onto the broader American scene as a thought are often too brief. In fact, these portray‐ replacement for "jungle" remain unclear. That the als rely rather heavily on the actors' own autobi‐ narrative ends well before the true explosion of ographies and recent biographies, including Wade rainforest discourse in the 1980s also makes the Davis's treatment of Schultes in One River: Explo‐ book's argument about the transition to a rainfor‐ rations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain For‐ est ideal less strong than it could have been. est (1996) and Carol Grant Gould's The Remark‐ 2 H-Net Reviews Nevertheless, Enright's foray into twentieth- in tropical landscapes and cultural perceptions of century American cultural conceptions of tropical tropical nature are beginning to be revealed.[2] landscapes is an extremely welcome one, since In spite of these omissions, Enright's overall the existing historiography on tropicality has had argument is persuasive. Deeply held American a strong focus on the European empires, and es‐ conceptions of "wilderness" shaped how Ameri‐ pecially on the nineteenth century. If she had cans encountered "the jungle." Over the twentieth more explicitly used this previous work, she could century, tropical forests transitioned from danger‐ have made some interesting comparisons with ous to endangered, a shift signaled by the emer‐ the American case. Enright's identification of gence of "the rainforest." Enright has identified wilderness as a major frame of reference for U.S. broad cultural trends in American thinking about visitors to the world's tropical forests is convinc‐ tropical forests, and this is an important frst step ing, but one suspects that Western culture's toward extending the environmental history of broader and enduring discourse about the tropics American wilderness ideas outside of the borders was equally relevant to the construction of the of the United States. Future work in this area idea of the jungle within American thought. As it should seek to tie the cultural strands Enright stands, the book does not engage deeply with the identifies to the broader historical intellectual, po‐ large literature on European encounters with the litical, and economic fabric. tropics. How American ideas about the jungle Notes were or were not distinct is still an open question. [1]. Richard White, “American Environmental If Americans did fashion new conceptions of History: The Development of a New Field,” The tropical forests through the course of the twenti‐ Pacific Historical Review 54, no. 1 (1985): 309-310. eth century, we might expect these to be strongly affected by the rapidly growing U.S. political and [2]. See, for example, John Soluri, Banana Cul‐ economic presence in tropical Latin America, tures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environ‐ Africa, and Asia. The Maximum of Wilderness mental Change in Honduras and the United States contains tantalizing hints as to how expanding ef‐ (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005). forts to develop the resources of tropical forests shaped Americans' abilities to access the tropics " in the frst place: Muir's travels in Brazil were " largely made possible by timber and railroad men; Beebe's jungle trails were cleared by colo‐ exploring of nial convicts and gold miners and his research a selection of station was built on the edge of the rubber planta‐ - tion that would ultimately engulf his beloved for‐ - est. Enright occasionally notes such contradic‐ tions, but does not situate these historical actors C within the social and economic networks that P would
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