New book "The Nature of Soviet Power - An Arctic Environmental History"

The Nature of Soviet Power

An Arctic Environmental History

Part of Studies in Environment and History

Author: Andy Bruno, Northern Illinois University

Date Published: April 2016

During the twentieth century, the Soviet Union turned the Kola Peninsula in the northwest corner of the country into one of the most populated, industrialized, militarized, and polluted parts of the Arctic. This transformation suggests, above all, that environmental relations fundamentally shaped the Soviet experience. Interactions with the natural world both enabled industrial livelihoods and curtailed socialist promises. Nature itself was a participant in the communist project. Taking a long-term comparative perspective, The Nature of Soviet Power sees Soviet environmental history as part of the global pursuit for unending economic growth among modern states. This in-depth exploration of railroad construction, the mining and processing of phosphorus-rich apatite, reindeer herding, nickel and copper smelting, and energy production in the region examines Soviet cultural perceptions of nature, plans for development, lived experiences, and modifications to the physical world. While Soviet power remade nature, nature also remade Soviet power.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/environmental-history/nature-soviet-power-arctic-environmental-history?format=HB  

50% discount on new book "Cycling and Recycling"

New from Berghahn Books:

CYCLING AND RECYCLING

 Histories of Sustainable Practices

Edited by Ruth Oldenziel and Helmuth Trischler

256 pages, 18 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-78238-970-5 $95.00/£60.00

“This book’s conceptual framework is truly innovative and makes a much-needed intervention in the vast literature on sustainability. Writing against the ‘techno-fix mentality’ that dominates so many contemporary environmental discourses, the editors persuasively argue for the need to resurrect ‘older technologies for a new purpose.’” · Edward D. Melillo, Amherst College

In fascinating case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of two such technologies—bicycling and waste recycling—tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today."

To get your 50% discount use the code OLD705 when you buy the book from the website: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=OldenzielCycling

New book on environmental crises in Central Asia released

Environmental Crises in Central Asia: From Steppes to Seas, from Deserts to Glaciers has just been published by Routledge as part of its Studies in Environmental Communication and Media series.

The editors are Professor Eric Freedman, the Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University, U.S., and Professor Mark Neuzil of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, U.S.

The multidisciplinary book explores an array of environmental challenges in a strategically crucial part of the globe, including the impact of climate change on glacial melt, desertification, deforestation, destruction of biodiversity, hazardous wastes, water quality and supply, energy exploration, air and pesticide pollution, and environmental diseases.

Those challenges cross national borders and may affect economic, political and cultural relationships on a vast geographic scale at a time when the region’s governments are burdened by limited economic resources, weak civil society institutions and political authoritarianism.

The book emphasizes the reality that environmental conditions don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re influenced by science, politics, history, public policy, culture, economics, public attitudes and competing priorities, as well as past human decisions. In the case of Central Asia, such Soviet-era decisions include irrigation systems and physical infrastructure that are now crumbling, mine tailings that leach pollutants into soil and groundwater, and abandoned factories that are physically decrepit and contaminated with toxic chemicals.

Thus it draws on research in the social sciences, natural sciences, media studies and health by scholars and practitioners in Central Asia, Europe and the United States.

New Book by Jonathan Oldfield and Denis Shaw

The Development of Russian Environmental Thought: Scientific and Geographical Perspectives on the Natural Environment

Jonathan D Oldfield and Denis J B Shaw

Routledge, London, 2016.

Jon Oldfield and Denis Shaw have published their book, The Development of Russian Environmental Thought, the product of several years of collaborative research, a number of UKRC research grants and other funding sources, and of many research visits to Russian libraries and archives and to many other repositories. According to the publisher’s blurb:

‘This book provides a comprehensive overview of the very rich thinking about environmental issues which have grown up in Russia since the nineteenth century, a body of knowledge and thought which is not well known to Western scholars and environmentalists. It shows how in the late nineteenth century there emerged in Russia distinct and strongly articulated representations of the earth’s physical systems within many branches of the natural sciences, representations which typically emphasized the completely integrated nature of natural systems. It stresses the importance in these developments of V. V. Dokuchaev who significantly advanced the field of soil science. It goes on to discuss how this distinctly Russian approach to the environment developed further through the work of geographers and other environmental scientists down to the late Soviet period.’

More information at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415580595/

"Rivers, Memory and Nation-Building" - 40% discount on this Berghahn book

Berghahn is delighted to announce the publication of "Rivers, Memory and Nation-Building" by Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted. This printed volume provides a comparative study of the history of the Volga and Mississippi rivers, and delivers a nuanced view of human interaction with the environment.

Volume 5 in the Series: Environment in History: International Perspectives, it is available until 30th April 2015 at a special 40% discount when ordered via the Berghahn website. To take advantage of this limited-time, offer, simply enter the code ES40 at Checkout.  

"Civilizing Nature" - 25% discount on this new Berghahn book

Berghahn Books is delighted to announce the publication in Paperback of "Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective" edited by Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler and Patrick Kupper. This printed volume adopts an historical and transnational perspective on the global geography of protected areas and its changes over time.

Volume 1 in the Series: Environment in History: International Perspectives, it is available until 30th April 2015 at a special 25% discount when ordered via the Berghahn website. To take advantage of this limited-time, offer, simply enter the code ES25 at Checkout.

Book: Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

Kate Brown (University of Maryland Baltimore County) is a Visiting Researcher with the Network.

Here is a link to a recent exchange about her latest book "Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters" (Oxford University Press, 2013). http://www.secondworldurbanity.org/book-discussions/oh-utopia-where-are-you/

Read more about Kate Brown on the UMBC website http://history.umbc.edu/facultystaff/full-time/kate-brown/

View a list of all people involved in the Network on the Network website http://www.york.ac.uk/history/research/majorprojects/russiasenvironmentalhistory/#tab-3

Book review of "Heart-Pine Russia: Walking and Writing the Nineteenth-Century Forest."

Read Network member Prof David Moon's review of:

Jane T. Costlow, Heart-Pine Russia: Walking and Writing the Nineteenth-Century Forest. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38239