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Environmentalism: A Global History. By RAMACHANDRA GUHA. New York: Longman, 2000. Pp. xiii + I6I. $2I.60 (paper).
This book deals with the origins and growth of global environmental thought and action. Conveniently divided into equal parts, it analyzes two waves of environmentalism that apparently swept over the world from the eighteenth century through the present.
The first wave, according to Guha, set the stage for the rise of environmental consciousness. In this stage (which lasted until I962) thinkers, philosophers, scientists, biologists, preachers, and activists developed the idea of the environment and its significance to the survival of all life forms. This was in response to the dramatic environmental degradation caused by the Industrial Revolution in Europe. It is argued that the rise of modem environmentalism is a direct response to rapid industrialization of the world. This manifested itself in many forms.
It began with a simple yearning for going "back to the land" and gradually developed into a more complicated ideology. While Wordsworth and Gandhi perceived it in terms of simplicity, George Perkins Marsh and Dietrich Brandis transformed it into an ideology of "scientific conservation." This new ideology of rational management brought forests and other natural resources under state control. The social and ecological consequences were foregone. In the United States, Europe, and Europe's colonies, it meant attack on forests, natural resources, and indigenous societies. The growth of the wilderness idea was a direct response to the ideology of scientific conservation. John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and others promoted the idea of preserving wilderness areas from the onslaught of the plough and bulldozer. Through their writings and speeches, the wilderness thinkers formed associations and agencies like the Sierra Club, Forest Departments, conservation societies, etc., and paved the way for ecotourism. In colonies like South Africa, large areas of wilderness were cleared of the indigenous people and conserved for the exclusive use of white colonizers and their progeny.
In a very interesting chapter titled "The Age of Ecological Innocence," Guha argues that ideas of environmentalism failed to influence the mad rush for development after World War II. The period between I945 and I962 is designated as the age of ecological innocence. The transformation first took place in the United States and then spread to the West.
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