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ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY An Environmental History of Latin America. By Shawn William Miller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xi, 257. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00 cloth; $22.99 paper.
Shawn Miller has done us a great favor. He has synthesized the Latin American environmental history literature from the past fifteen years, without leaving earlier works behind, to produce the first general text of its kind. The book serves as a primer for environmental history in the region from pre-Hispanic civilization to Cuba's Special Period. It should find an audience in any classroom tackling the topic. Miller takes a fruitful approach: tracing the history of interaction between nature and culture, without detaching the later from the former, without resorting to binary oppositions nor reducing nature to "props and scenery" (p. 1). In the process he introduces the reader to a plethora of concepts: sustainability, progress, built environment, soil fertility, wilderness, degradation, ecotourism, conservation, environmentalism and more. Miller also maintains an informative comparative perspective...