Introduction

The Encyclopedia of World offers since 1960, is a regional affair, involving and affecting a dynamic view of human interaction with the environ- what are now several countries and in ment from the deep past to the present, encompassing Central Asia. The poisoning of Minamata Bay, in the entire globe. Its three volumes comprise concise Japan, with methyl mercury in the 1950s was a local overviews of hundreds of topics, events, people, natu- matter at first, but became a national affair through ral resources, and aspects of human and natu- lawsuits and political wrangling. Ultimately rather few ral history, together with wide-ranging lists for further subjects in environmental history are truly local, be- reading and hundreds of sidebars, photographs, and cause as the naturalist John Muir noted, in nature maps. This unique work is the product of a global com- everything is always hitched to everything else. The munity of scholars who include founders of the field Encyclopedia of World Environmental History tries to take of environmental history as well as prominent scholars into account the fact that the arenas in which the events in related fields. of environmental history have been played out are of various sizes and are often overlapping. A Global Endeavor In seeking to take into account the range of environ- ments on Earth, the Encyclopedia also aims to put The logic of pursuing environmental history on the human history into its broadest context. This is one global scale is straightforward. Many processes of en- of the signal contributions environmental history can vironmental change unfold without reference to bor- make. Human struggles have always occurred within ders or to our usual mental maps. In the centuries after the framework of the natural world, and that frame- Columbus, the prickly pear cactus spread from its work has, always and everywhere, been in flux—some- Mexican home to South Africa, Morocco, Spain, Aus- times rapid, sometimes slow. Wildlife, soils, climate, tralia, and dozens of other lands. The European rabbit and disease are just some of the hundreds of factors was another global conquistador, colonizing parts of in the natural world that have always constrained and every continent except Antarctica. The ongoing accu- conditioned the human experience. For its part, human mulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, sulfur action has increasingly affected the natural world and dioxide moving with the winds to fall as acid rain far its . Human coevolves with nature; from its point of origin, the overharvesting of the sea’s human history unfolds within a broad natural context richest fishing grounds, salt accumulation in irrigated even as it helps shape that context. lands, the late-nineteenth-century establishment of na- The emergence of environmental history as field tional parks, and the late-twentieth-century emergence of scholarship is part of a broad shift in the way we of popular —these and many pro- understand our environment. Centuries ago, at least cesses like them were global, or nearly global, in scale. in most , the stars and the planets were thought At the same time, of course, some aspects of envi- to be immutable fixtures of the heavens. The Earth too ronmental history are national or regional in scope. was generally understood as everlasting, and life on When the United States created its Environmental Pro- Earth, even if in some versions created all of a piece, tection Agency in 1970, its jurisdiction was explicitly consisted of a fixed number of species which had been national. The desiccation of the Aral Sea, under way there from the start and would remain until the finish.

ix

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction

But since the 1830s geologists have offered a picture tory, on every scale from local to global. In a few en- of Earth’s history that is truly historical. Biologists tries, it even ventures into space. since the 1860s have increasingly agreed that life on Earth is always in flux, that species come and go. More Chronicling Scholarship in Environmental recently astronomers and cosmologists have con- History cluded that the universe itself is not timeless but in- stead historical: It is perhaps 13 to 14 billion years old, The formation of the American Society for Environ- still expanding, and the stars, galaxies, and planets mental History in 1977 marked the birth of environ- within it come and go. Increasingly, static or even equi- mental history as a formal discipline, but its roots reach librium models of how everything works have given back to Plato in ancient Greece and Laozi in ancient way to dynamic, historical models. The field of envi- China. In nineteenth-century North America, George ronmental history chronicles and analyses the dynam- Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature (1864) documented ics of life on Earth. the destructive effects of human action on the land World environmental history not only considers from the days of the ancient civilizations of the Medi- the whole world, it is also a worldwide undertaking. terranean world. Marsh called for the restoration of Although it was in the United States that historians forests, soils, and rivers through human cooperation first began to refer to themselves as environmental his- with nature. Almost a century later, Man’s Role in torians and first formed an organization explicitly de- Changing the Face of the Earth (1956), edited by the geog- voted to environmental history, scholars elsewhere rapher William L. Thomas, again offered a comprehen- had long been interested in the same sorts of questions, sive history of environmental change from historical geographers foremost among them. Indeed, to the present. Samuel P. Hays showed how the conser- drawing a distinction between the interests and meth- vation movement of the early twentieth century at- ods of historical geographers and those of environmen- tempted reforestation and rangeland restoration in his book Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency (1959), tal historians is difficult. Nevertheless, from roughly while Roderick Nash wrote on the evolution of atti- the 1980s scholars choosing to call themselves environ- tudes toward wilderness in his Wilderness and the Amer- mental historians have set to work around the world. ican Mind, first published in 1967. That same year, Clar- In Europe the most active communities developed in ence Glacken published a monumental account of the Germany, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Britain. In Af- history of human attitudes toward nature from ancient rica, where political and economic instability are huge times to the eighteenth century in Traces on the Rhodean obstacles to scholarly work, environmental historians Shore. William McNeill added to the discussion with have emerged since the mid-1980s, especially in South Plagues and Peoples (1976), an analysis of the role of Africa, but in East Africa too. India has had a particu- microbes and human disease in shaping history. larly active group of environmental historians since Since the 1970s an explosion of scholarship on about 1985, as has Australia, and, more recently, New United States environmental history has taken place. Zealand. Since 1990 or so a small but determined group Historians of the U.S. West and Middle West have been of environmental historians has emerged in Latin especially active, and a considerable literature has de- America, mainly in Brazil and Mexico. By and large, veloped, with the scholars William Cronon, Patricia environmental history has few practitioners in Russia, Limerick, Vera Norwood, Donald Pisani, Stephen J. China, Japan, or the Arab world, although foreigners Pyne, Richard White, and Donald Worster being have explored environmental-history themes quite among the most widely read. Building on the early successfully for China and Japan. There are signs, work of Avery O. Craven and Lewis Cecil Gray, schol- moreover, that these pioneering efforts are attracting arship on slavery and agriculture in the South has been followers and inspiring new research. carried out by Albert Cowdrey, Jack Temple Kirby, If it comes to pass that environmental historians Timothy Silver, Mart A. Stewart, and most recently by in those areas catch up to their colleagues in India, Dianne D. Glave and Elizabeth Blum. Foundational Germany, or the United States, then one day we shall work on the environment of the Northeast includes have a richer, deeper command of the world’s environ- that of William Cronon, John T. Cumbler, Calvin Mar- mental history. That day is some way off. In the mean- tin, Carolyn Merchant, Theodore Steinberg, and Alan time, this Encyclopedia offers a comprehensive, up-to- S. Taylor, while the urban environment and its prob- date, in-depth, worldwide vision of environmental his- lems has been the focus of study by Robert Gottlieb, x

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction

Suellen Hoy, Andrew Hurley, Martin Melosi, Adam human realm, economic systems, sizes, Rome, and Joel Tarr. New directions in the field in- consumption patterns, political institutions, attitudes clude the roles of women in environmental and conser- toward race and , and ideas about nature affect vation history, the history of , our interaction with natural systems. and the responses of minorities to environmental Cultural perspectives on nature vary widely change. around the globe. , Eastern philoso- In Europe, historians of the Annales School (a phers, nineteenth-century Romantics, and environ- group of French historians who published in the jour- mental scientists all had or have differing views of nal Annales) examined environmental changes in Eu- what nature is and how the natural world arose. People rope, such as forest clearing and wetland drainage in have used stories, myths, dance, art, , and response to population fluctuations. Emmanuel LeRoy religion to express their perceptions of nature as a gift Ladurie, Marc Bloch, and Fernand Braudel were espe- of the gods or a collection of resources to be used for cially concerned with the environments of France and human benefit, and to craft guidelines for ethical be- the Mediterranean world and the ways in which popu- havior. A narrative approach sets up overarching story lation, disease, poverty, and resources interacted. In lines of progress in subduing and controlling nature England, historians such as W. G. Hoskins, Joan Thirsk, or of the loss of pristine nature and the decline in spe- Jerome Blum, Eric Hobsbawm, and B. H. Slicher Van cies and environmental quality. Whatever the ap- Bath examined how the English and northern Euro- proach, the complexity and unpredictability of nature pean landscapes changed with the spread of grazing and human are inescapable themes in envi- and the three-field system of agriculture. Joseph Need- ronmental history. Environmental history is thus of ham’s multivolume Science and Civilization in China growing interest and value to many other disciplines, (1954–2000) is an important starting point for an envi- to policy makers, restoration ecologists, and a variety ronmental history of China, while Anil Agarwal and of cultures and societies around the world. Sunita Narain’s The State of India’s Environment (1985) and Richard P. Tucker and John F. Richards’s Global Environmental History and the History of Deforestation and the Nineteenth-Century World Economy Science (1983) are launching points for an environmental his- tory of South and Southeast Asia. Finally, The Earth As Environmental history draws on numerous sciences Transformed by Human Action (1990), a comprehensive and their histories. Ecology, botany, zoology, bacteriol- environmental history of the world over the past three ogy, medicine, geology, physics, and chemistry all bear hundred years, edited by B. L. Turner II and others, directly on environmental history. Perhaps the most followed in the tradition of the works by George Per- fundamental and encompassing science is ecology. Cli- kins Marsh and William L. Thomas. In a mere three mate, rainfall, and average annual temperatures set decades the field of environmental history has grown limits to the vegetation and related animal life in a exponentially and spread over the world. These vol- given region. Soil types may vary greatly over short umes are an effort to synthesize that work and array distances, as may water availability. Depending on the it in an accessible manner. array of conditions present, the region will either be attractive for human settlement attractive or challeng- Perspectives and Approaches ing. A given culture’s extraction of such resources as plant and animal foods, pelts, fuels, and minerals for Environmental history encompasses a variety of ap- trade affects local ecological conditions and hence the proaches to analyzing human interactions with the nat- potential for continued settlement or the necessity of ural world. By viewing physical and biological pro- migration. The science of ecology therefore aids envi- cesses as integral parts of history, the natural world ronmental historians in interpreting the ways a culture becomes a subject for historical investigation. Mam- interacts with the land and surrounding peoples. But mals, birds, plants, bacteria, and viruses constitute environmental historians are also aware that ecology biotic actors that play important roles in the unfolding as a science continues to evolve and that the history of of history. Abiotic constituents and processes—cli- ecology is relevant to how environmental history is matic change, soil composition, hydraulic forces, and written. Ecological concepts such as plant succession, atmospheric compounds, for example—are also im- biodiversity, the balance of nature, and the unpredict- portant in the eyes of environmental historians. In the ability of weather are reassessed and modified over

xi

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction the years, influencing the way environmental history culture to culture. Gathering, hunting, fishing, and is written and revised. horticulture—all activities that affect environmental Equally important for environmental historians is quality and resource availability—often have sex-spe- the history of disease and medicine. Whether a popula- cific components. In some cultures men are primarily tion is susceptible or immune to an introduced disease responsible for hunting larger game animals while is critical to the success both of colonizers and indige- women may participate in hunting smaller animals nous populations. Much of world environmental his- and in meat processing. In some cultures women are tory can be interpreted in the light of epidemics of dis- primarily responsible for gathering and shifting horti- eases such as smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, culture, using digging tools, while in others men may tuberculosis, influenza, and viruses that European col- assume responsibility for horticulture and for settled onizers brought to the New World. Outbreaks of chol- agriculture when large draft animals are used in plow- era and yellow fever associated with contaminated or ing. Fishing likewise is often differentiated along gen- stagnant water and black and brown lung diseases as- der lines, with men setting nets and weirs or fishing sociated with the mining and manufacturing indus- from boats and women gathering shellfish or fishing tries are also influential disease patterns in environ- with hooks and lines. mental history. Knowing the history of epidemiology, The ways in which such gendered production sys- virology, and toxicology can therefore be critical to the tems use, exploit, or conserve resources is relevant to way environmental historians interpret their subject the production systems’ over time and matter. their adaptability to new environments. Environmen- Another way to approach environmental history is tal historians study them on a case-by-case basis. For through the history of the environmental and earth sci- example, during the period of European colonization, ences. How a culture understands geology, climatol- agricultural systems in which men used draft animals ogy, and mineralogy influenced the ways in which it and plows in large fields for grain production and extracts minerals, processes them, and attaches impor- women worked in vegetable and herb gardens, tended tance to them—and that understanding changes with poultry, and processed food spread rapidly around the time. Whether a society uses coal, iron, gold, or silicon temperate regions of the globe, supplanting indige- as a resource depends not only on their availability nous systems based on gathering, hunting, fishing, and but also on how they are conceptualized at a given horticulture. While the colonizing systems may have historical moment and how they fit into a society’s ma- been more efficient than the indigenous systems in ex- terial infrastructure and interpretation of nature. For ploiting soils and forests for subsistence and profit, example, whether it is acceptable to mine for metals they may also have wasted resources—at least initially, may depend on whether metals are thought of as living until resource degradation stimulated agricultural im- or dead, as well as the technologies available to extract provement and forest conservation. Of interest to envi- and process them and the importance of metal prod- ronmental historians is the interaction between women ucts to material culture and personal wealth. and men in traditional systems and between cultures Finally, the histories of physics, biology, and chem- during colonization. Environmental historians ask istry help environmental historians understand the whether any generalizations can be made or patterns ways a society thinks about the natural world. New- discerned regarding the roles of the sexes in conserving tonian mechanics, Darwinian evolution, thermo- or exploiting resources. dynamics, atomic theory, and the periodic table Environmental historians are also interested in the of elements are frameworks both for technological ways women and men responded to the need for re- development and for aesthetic, ethical, and religious source conservation and environmental improvement appreciation of the natural order and humanity’s place during the era of industrialization at the beginning of within it. All branches of the history of science, then, the nineteenth century and the era of environmental- are integral parts of world environmental history. ism at the end of the twentieth century. Women played major roles in lobbying for the conservation of forests, Environmental History and Gender parks, and wildlife, often seeing themselves at odds with the interests and activities of men, which they Gender is important to environmental history because perceived as exploitative and wasteful. Similarly, the nature of male and female interactions with the women also challenged the men of their communities natural world has changed over time and differs from to clean up polluted air and water and to institute street xii

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction cleaning and garbage collection. During the environ- grand unilineal schemes—evolution of the family, reli- mental movement of the 1970s and subsequent de- gion, or human society. Reaction to these speculative cades, which was sparked in large part by Rachel Car- designs was sharp at the beginning of the twentieth son’s 1962 book Silent Spring, women pressed for century, which saw the beginning of an era of anti- wilderness preservation, clean air and water legisla- evolutionist (and anti-environmental-determinist) fer- tion, pesticide controls, and the cleanup of toxic land- vor, but in the 1930s and 1940s anthropologists re- fills and chemical incinerators. Women around the turned to evolution with greatly lowered sights in a world became leaders in conservation, environmental, succession of fields called , cultural and antitoxic movements both in industrialized and ecology, ecological , and historical ecol- developing nations, from the local to the international ogy. Their theories about the static or dynamic rela- level. tionship between humans and the environment tended A third issue is the relationship between gender to be grounded in specific historical and cultural con- and metaphor in depicting nature in myth, religion, texts and have been important for the unfolding rela- science, literature, and art. Whether nature is viewed as tionship between anthropology and environmental created and directed by a male god, a goddess, female history. nature acting through God’s direction, a raven, a grandmother spider, or a set of gender-neutral pro- Cultural Evolution and cesses can be relevant to the ways in which it is used. Cultural evolution and cultural ecology, premised on Nature may be viewed as a mother to be revered, a the theory that humans adapt to natural and social en- virgin to raped, or a witch who brings bad harvests and vironments by cultural means, were popular fields in human ailments. Such images of nature can influence anthropology for decades. Anthropologists explored human ethical behavior and practice. Some rit- the relationship between technology, population, con- uals may encourage the conservation of resources trol of , and social complexity. Many considered while others may have little practical consequence but technology and the instruments and modes of produc- may nevertheless set up a framework of reverence and tion as well as certain natural characteristics (for exam- respect for the natural world. Conversely, may ple, the environmental circumscription of societies encourage exploitation and waste. Analyzing the gen- with expanding populations) important determinants dered meanings found within a given culture’s icons of culture and human behavior. A modified geographi- and narratives can thus provide clues to attitudes that cal determinism linked these schemes to those of the may reinforce particular practices or provide inspira- nineteenth century, but it was almost always tempered tion for changing those practices. by the interplay of environment and technology. The focus almost always remained on human society, how- Environmental History and Anthropology ever, not on the environment, although clearly evolu- tion played out in unfolding relationships between For well over a century anthropologists have posed human societies and their environments. many of the same questions as environmental histori- ans. As their discipline took shape in the nineteenth Ecological Anthropology and century, a number of anthropologists were concerned with the relationship between humans and the envi- In the 1960s, anthropological interest in the human- ronment; specifically, the determining or constraining environmental relationship matured as ecological an- influence of geography, environment, or climate on thropology, which explores the application in human human society and culture. Their arguments (now dis- societies of the concepts of , ecological niche, credited) suggested that extremes in climate or lati- habitat, and adaptation, came into its own. The most tude, or barrenness of land, hindered the development famous work of ecological anthropology suggested of culture and mental disposition, while temperate cli- that ritual was the regulatory mechanism balancing the mates were believed to favor the development of what ratio of human and pig populations to the carrying theorists perceived as human capacity. capacity of the land in New Guinea. Others works ex- Nineteenth-century anthropology was swept along plored the adaptations and human-land relations of by evolutionism, which brought to the discipline a con- hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, or agriculturalists under tinuing focus on human adaptations in different envi- changing circumstances (including the encroaching ronments. At first, evolutionary interest centered on presence of global economic systems). The challenges

xiii

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction of applying the concepts of function, adaptation, and ease, anthropogenic landscapes, the impacts of pastor- system at both the level of the individual and the group alism and agrarianism, long-term adaptations and the have been constant in both ecology and anthropology. possibilities of sustainability, the cultural construction The most recent iteration of the anthropological in- of environmental values, the of environ- terest in human-environment relations is historical mentalism, the politics of , and ecology, defined as the study of of the past environmental justice. It is a varied and rapidly ex- through change in landscapes. For many of its propo- panding field, one no doubt enhanced by the realiza- nents, historical ecology emerged not merely because tion that the relationship between humans and the en- scholars wished to understand past human-environ- vironment will present some of the most critical ment relationships but also out of a desire to guide challenges of the twenty-first century. humanity to a sustainable future. Environmental History and Anthropological The links between natural history—the descriptive, The commitment of anthropological archaeologists to systematic and, ultimately, scientific study of the natu- exploring ecological and evolutionary questions has ral world—and environmental history are varied. In remained particularly constant through the years. the West, the roots of the discipline of natural history Many have been deeply influenced by cultural ecology; can be traced to Aristotle and to certain early-modern others focus on individual decision making and still thinkers, whose taxonomies reflected the importance others on more systemic processes in environmental of the perceived relationship between the natural change (insofar as either is revealed in the archaeologi- world and humans. Not surprisingly, ideas about the cal record). natural world reflected thoughts about human emo- Recent archaeological contributions to our under- tions, aesthetics, morality, society, and culture. In the standing of the impact of humans on ancient environ- sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, a period of ments around the world have been substantial. They Western expansion of geographical and descriptive include studies of the impact of predation, fire, in- knowledge of the natural world through exploration creases in population size and density, the domestica- and the return of specimens to cabinets of curiosities, tion of plants and animals, urbanism, intensification of more detached perspectives on nature entered natural production, and crowd diseases. A growing number history even as religious explanations of nature re- of archaeologists are interested in large-scale histories mained essentially intact. of past societies. For example, they have investigated In some ways the eighteenth century was a high the impact of climatic fluctuation or volcanic eruptions point for natural history. During that century signifi- in the American West, the impact of farming in the cant works of natural description and classification (by Mediterranean, the connections, if any, between the Linneaus, Buffon, and others) were published, govern- demand for trees, deforestation, and human popula- ments sponsored the study of natural history, botanical tion dispersal. When people migrate they transport decoration and illustration became popular, people their landscapes (both mental models and physical celebrated arcadian harmony, a benign, holistic rela- icons) with them, and anthropological archaeologists tionship between man and nature was posited, and are increasingly interested in the impact of such move- there was a significant rise in concern for the environ- ments and changes. ment. Social and In the nineteenth century natural history’s empha- sis on morphological study of life forms continued but Social and cultural anthropologists contribute to envi- theoretical energy shifted to newly emergent disci- ronmental history through ethnography and historical plines, all of which were increasingly (after mid-cen- analysis. Their interests are remarkably varied. Some tury) affected by evolutionary thought. By the early study indigenous peoples’ extensive knowledge of the twentieth century biology, physiology, ecology, and natural world, made sense of culturally and organized other fields of scientific inquiry had pushed natural in taxonomies that both overlap with and depart signif- history aside, relegating it in the minds of many to icantly from Western scientific schemes. Others focus an antiquarian pursuit confined to museums. Many on the cultural construction of nature, the demo- regarded ecology in particular as the new natural his- graphic and environmental impact of epidemic dis- tory. xiv

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33 Introduction

Yet natural history continued, both as a descriptive Some of the articles are general, focusing on a re- and taxonomic pursuit and in the nature essays of such gion of the world or a period of time; others are shorter writers as John Burroughs, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and cover specific environmental issues or organiza- and many others whose humanist, aesthetic, or spirit- tions; still others are brief accounts of an individual or ual awe mediated their experience of nature as much a species in relation to environmental history. In order as did science. It may be in the nature essay, traceable to keep the Encyclopedia within reasonable page and to the eighteenth-century British clergyman and natu- volume limits, we have excluded living environmen- ralist Gilbert White, that natural history has seen its talists from our coverage. most consistent overlap with environmental history. Today’s nature writers continue to stress the impor- tance of combining in their narratives close descriptive, Additional Content systematic knowledge of the natural world with empa- The Encyclopedia is enriched by 20 maps, 111 photo- thy and reflection. graphs, and 115 sidebars, which provide supplemental But natural history remains highly visible to the information not in the articles themselves. Eight maps, public not just in natural-history essays but through which appear together in the front matter of each vol- the existence of major museums whose names pro- ume, identify the nations of each major region of the claim dedication to assemblages of facts about the nat- world. The other twelve maps accompany articles on ural world, to scientific description and taxonomy. The such topics as oil or tropical forests and show the distri- outgrowth of cabinets of curiosities, museums of natu- bution of resources or processes around the world. The ral history emerged in the eighteenth century and pro- photographs enhance the articles by showing artwork, liferated in the nineteenth. Today they educate millions historical figures, plants, animals, and minerals, envi- of visitors in the Western world about the natural ronmental phenomena, and more. The sidebars pro- world and, increasingly, about environmental history. vide additional information and include: Content and Types of Articles • Extracts from historical documents, including quo- tations from environmental scientists, brief descrip- The Encyclopedia of World Environmental History con- tions of environmental events, and firsthand ac- tains 520 articles arranged from A to Z with numerous counts by explorers, settlers, and early travelers. cross references. It provides coverage of the following • Extracts from ethnographic accounts that provide general topics: firsthand descriptions of the ways that indigenous Arts, Literature, and Architecture peoples used their environments and of treaties Biomes, Climate, and Natural Events made between settlers and indigenous peoples. Economic Systems • Extracts from environmental literature, poetry, and Energy Sources religious traditions that influence the ways people Eras and Civilizations, Ancient respond to the environment, both positively and Exploitation and Processes negatively. Key Concepts and Philosophies Law and Regulation In short, the Encyclopedia of World Environmental Nations and Regions, Modern History is an indispensable, up-to-date, in-depth guide Nonliving Resources to the multitude of issues environmental history ad- Organizations dresses. We believe it will prove to be the authoritative People reference on environmental history, and we hope it Places and Events will inspire today’s as well as the next generation of Plant and Animal Resources scholars, as well as students and environmentally Religion aware citizens across the globe. Sociocultural Resources Technology and Science Shepard Krech III, J. R. McNeill, and Carolyn Merchant

xv

5625$$FM01 07-14-03 12:35:33