FYI. X-posted from H-environment. Apologies for any duplications.
Stefanie Rixecker
ECOFEM Coordinator
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 09:41:43 -0600
From: Melissa Wiedenfeld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Book Review: Egan on Myllyntaus and Saikku,
_Encountering the Past in Nature_
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: H-NET List for Environmental History <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (March 2003)
Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku, eds. _Encountering the Past in Nature:
Essays in Environmental History_. Series in Ecology and History. Athens:
Ohio University Press, 2001. xix + 166 pp. Tables, maps, notes, and
index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8214-1357-0; $16.95 (paper), ISBN
0-8214-1358-9.
Reviewed for H-Environment by Michael Egan, Department of History,
Washington State University
This is a gem of a book that ought to be read by all environmental
historians to remind us what we do and why. This small collection of
essays by Finnish scholars establishes the basic tenets of environmental
history as a field of inquiry. While the authors cover a lot of familiar
ground, I have found the authors' clear and refreshing synthesis of the
field's principles particularly helpful in re-articulating environmental
history's place in my own work. Indeed, the book's strength lies in its
exceptional clarity of writing and of purpose. As such, it would make an
excellent course text for undergraduate and graduate courses in
environmental history.
Editors Timo Myllyntaus and Mikko Saikku open this anthology with an
engaging historiographic review of environmental history in Finland, and
with reference to the United States. They point to the similarities that
exist between these two countries with respect to their environmental
histories, arguing that they both experienced late population growth and
relatively late industrialization and urbanization compared with other
western nations. Since both were originally on the periphery of the
greater European economic system, they became hinterlands shipping raw
materials and semi-refined products to their ruling kingdoms--Finland to
Sweden and the American colonies to Great Britain (p. 16). As their
natural resources were of considerable economic significance to their
ruling kingdoms, they were of even more vital importance in the subsequent
industrialization and self-sovereignty of these two countries, in each
case at the expense of native populations. Finland and the United States
share a legacy of reliance on natural resources--particularly timber and
hydropower--that have only been dominated by human populations relatively
recently (over the last three centuries).
Scholars of American environmental history will be familiar with the many
texts the authors use to support their arguments; all the "usual suspects"
are included in the footnotes. More striking, however, is the authors'
rather clever reversal of the traditional central tenet of environmental
history. Whereas environmental historians have for years tried to promote
the inclusion of nature in human history, the authors argue that
"environmental history emphasizes the role of humans as an integral part
of their natural surroundings" (p. 2). This intriguing transposition
ultimately changes little with respect to environmental history's
ambitions, but it does speak directly to the question of this field's
relevance and relative acceptance. That is not to say that the authors
eschew notions of nature's agency, but rather that they accept it as a
universal given before concentrating on how human agency interacts with
it.
Early in their essay, Myllyntaus and Saikku state that "modern
environmental history strives for a fuller understanding of today's
environmental issues and may even provide data for contemporary problem
solving" (p. 2). The essays throughout the collection are presented in a
format that demonstrates how environmental history might be useful to
policy makers, but the essays also address more scholarly debates.
Foremost is the concept of wilderness. Myllyntaus and Saikku note that
one of the most noticeable distinctions between Finnish and American
environmental histories revolve around notions of wild spaces. The
authors suggest that the Finnish customary concept of wilderness
(_erämaadoes_) does not imply a completely intact or virgin nature, but
rather translates as hunting ground. In comparison, the Finnish _erämaa_
seems far more practical than Anglo-American ideas of wilderness as a pure
and original nature outside of human influence.
Constructions and deconstructions of wilderness have been a fiery source
of debate for a number of years, and the anthology's next offering, Ari
Aukusti Lehtinen's "Modernization and the Concept of Nature: On the
Reproduction of Environmental Stereotypes," stokes that debate. As with
Myllyntaus and Saikku's historiographic review, Lehtinen's essay is
effective in clearly framing the context of the existing debate. Lehtinen
echoes important works by William Cronon and Carolyn Merchant, arguing
that conditions of modernization resulted in the creation of a dualism in
our conceptions of nature. On the one hand, nature continues to be a raw
material that contributes to industrial development, while on the other
nature has become an object to be conserved. This conservationist impulse
has led to a desire to conserve a nature that is outside the human domain,
but Lehtinen--like Cronon--asks how we can conceive of pure or wild nature
without constructions. "This chapter," Lehtinen states, "argues that the
concept of nature as lying beyond the human realm is an abstraction that
dominates our understanding of and interrelations with nature" (p. 31). It
is a familiar argument; Lehtinen continues that this approach suffers from
anthropocentric conceit insofar as we tend to forget that we treat nature
as "other" in exactly the manner that we have learned to know it. To
Lehtinen the real culprit is modernization, which sees nature as "other,"
thereby establishing a faulty external reality that we can categorize.
Lehtinen's synthesis of the wilderness debate is well organized and
clearly delivered, but it reiterates Cronon's critique and does not
complicate the debate further. Further, it falls down at the same point
as have other arguments in this vein. While I remain somewhat sympathetic
to the claims that Lehtinen is making, I am bothered by the continued
oversimplification of the wilderness movement and of environmentalism more
generally in this argument. Lehtinen's treatment of environmentalism is
problematically one-dimensional; it strikes me that in order to revive
this debate a more sophisticated diagnosis of the environmental movement's
contributions and foibles needs to be developed. Readers looking here for
a second coming of the wilderness debate will be disappointed as Lehtinen,
in effect, paints the environmental movement with broad brush strokes
while condemning western values--and their self-proclaimed
omniscience--for doing just that in their conceptions of nature and
wilderness. Nevertheless, Lehtinen asks important and provocative
questions: is there a distinction between conservationism and
environmentalism? "are we, as nature researchers, conservationists, or
environmentalists, still hostages to this project of modernization?" (p.
34); what are the ultimate implications of (and potential solutions to)
seeing nature as "other"? In raising these questions, Lehtinen's essay is
a worthwhile addition, which helps in broadening the scope of this
anthology.
If Lehtinen's essay is provocative, Ismo Björn's discussion of the Karelia
forests is instructive, not only as a compelling case study but also in
demonstrating the range and possibilities of environmental history as a
discipline. Björn presents a rich history of the North Karelian Biosphere
Reserve in eastern Finland, and his narrative might serve as a useful
model for scholars working on landscape histories generally. His essay
effectively offers a standard declensionist narrative of an untouched
ecosystem that experiences gradual decline as a result of human
disturbance, but the story is complicated at every turn. Björn leads
readers through landscapes changed by evolving human economies, from
hunter-gatherer economies to post-industrial economies which read nature
as more than simply an extractive resource, noting that "change in the use
of the forest has not been discussed enough" (p. 69). Indeed, further
landscape analysis of this type would be most welcome. As Finland
industrialized, and limited quantities of iron were found, people were
able to dissociate themselves from the energy supplied by local
production. Karelia became a part of a much larger market marking its
introduction as an industrialized society as food and other items were
brought to the area from the outside rather than being farmed nearby. All
concentration was on the forest and its resources: "the natural forest was
to become an industrial forest, an investment to be grown" (p. 67). After
much deforestation, the iron-melting industry abandoned the region.
Karelia has since been revived as a cottage haven, but Björn concludes by
warning that this new form of holidaying causes considerable ecological
damage to the "natural" amenities people coming to the region treasure the
most.
The two penultimate essays leave Finland for Thailand and the United
States. In such a small book, two international case studies might seem
out of place, but their inclusion complements the Finnish pieces
methodologically. They are valuable in and of themselves, but they also
contribute to a sense that the book's discussion is relevant outside of
Finland. Olavi Luukkanen's fascinating essay examines forest depletion in
Thailand. Thailand's deforestation, he argues, is a unique case study
because commercial logging is banned and there exists "no substantial
forest management in indigenous forests for commercial production
purposes" (p. 87). Therefore, changes in the forest are caused by factors
other than industrial forestry. In his equally interesting essay on the
extinct ivory-billed woodpecker of the southeastern United States, Mikko
Saikku makes useful connections between wildlife species and ecosystem
health, arguing that the bird's disappearance is indicative of significant
change in the southeastern hardwood forests as a result of commercial
industrialization and development.
_Encountering the Past in Nature_ concludes with a concise chapter by
Myllyntaus which might easily have served as an alternative introduction,
as he outlines the parameters of environmental history as a discipline.
While he recognizes that the history of the environment is a relatively
recent endeavor, Myllyntaus points to old roots, and works he identifies
as "instinctive" environmental history. As with every essay in this book,
the conclusion is clear and accessible, and Myllyntaus makes good use of
this instinctive environmental history in establishing a useful, larger
historiographic framework for environmental history.
Critics might regret the book's heavy concentration on timber and forest
history as not being wholly representative of environmental history--an
urban case study could have made a welcome addition--but environmental
historians of the non-woodland ilk might likely still find much to
recommend this title. It remains an exceptionally clear and accessible
exposition of environmental history's methodologies and the potentials of
its narratives. Indeed, non-forest historians might well find inspiration
herein for the framing or constructing of their own narratives.
Nor should Americanists nor non-Scandinavianists be scared off in spite of
the book's relatively Finnish emphasis. As Myllyntaus and Saikku argue in
their preface and in the historiographic essay, environmental degradation
has become a global problem and a deeper understanding of contemporary
environmental problems requires that we appreciate the significance of
these problems' histories. Speaking comparatively, Myllyntaus and Saikku
correctly claim that "the study of environmental history will help us find
some common ground in that quest" (p. 20). _Encountering the Past in
Nature_ is an excellent step toward realizing that common ground.
Copyright 2002 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the
redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------- End of forwarded message -------
************************************
Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker, Director
Environment, Society and Design Division
Lincoln University, Canterbury
PO Box 84
Aotearoa New Zealand
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ph: 03-325-2811, x8643
************************************
