Environment and History The Taming of Nature in the USA and South Africa

About this book

Originally published in paperback in 1995.

The influence of human economies and cultures on ecosystems is particularly striking in the new worlds into which Europeans have expanded over the past five hundred years. Using a comparative and multidisciplinary approach, Beinart and Coates examine this neglected aspect of the history of settler incursion and dominance in two frontier nations, the USA and South Africa. They also seek to explain change in indigenous ideas and practices towards the environment, and discuss the rise of popular environmentalism up to the present day.

Contents

1. Introduction: Comparative analysis, the historical background and the nature of environmental history
2. Hunting and animals: from game to wildlife
3. Timber and trees: from felling to forestry
4. Agriculture: exploitation unlimited and limited
5. Nature reserves and National Parks: revaluing and renaturing the wild
6. From conservation to environmentalism and beyond

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Biography

William Beinart is Reader and Peter Coates Lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol. William Beinart is the author of Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa (1987), and Twentieth-Century South Africa (1994). He is the co-editor of Segregation and Apartheid in Twentieth-Century South Africa (1995). Peter Coates is the author of In Nature's Defence (1993).