tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post3497281796941968382..comments2023-11-03T08:02:25.369-04:00Comments on AmericanScience: A Team Blog: Politics of NatureDavid Roth Singermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841041983824755867noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-30010034614556272032014-11-18T21:34:06.954-05:002014-11-18T21:34:06.954-05:00Thanks, Evan! Bill Cronon has done a lot to introd...Thanks, Evan! Bill Cronon has done a lot to introduce the work of White (and others) to environmental historians through his discussions of "declensionist" versus triumphalist narratives (for more on this, see his 1992 essay, "A Place for Stories"). In fact you've picked up on one of the core challenges of doing environmental history: where we choose to begin and end our narratives matters, not least because these choices have implications for how human action is portrayed. For example: Does our reliance on fossil fuels mean that we have irreversibly destroyed the earth? Or has it forced us to come to terms with the natural temporality of geological deep time in a way that makes us reconfigure ideas about our place in the natural world? Depending on how things turn out in the Anthropocene, the historical narrative of natural resource extraction may look very different fifty years from now. leahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05917318456021402017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-54004237210165070902014-11-18T13:34:59.657-05:002014-11-18T13:34:59.657-05:00Fantastic post, Leah.
"Here, humans—via indu...Fantastic post, Leah.<br /><br />"Here, humans—via industrialization—are now so much a part of the natural world that they have become their own force of nature; in the logic of the Anthropocene, we broke free from nature only to come dominate it on its own, natural, terms and scales." - That's really interesting. Never thought about the Anthropocene as a means of attributing a natural historical, geological sort of inevitability to the effects of human society.<br /><br />This brings to mind Hayden White's discussion of "Radical" and "Conservative" forms of the "tragic" emplotment in _Metahistory_. In both cases, a disaster or failed test makes the hero (and the audience) come to terms with the limitations imposed upon us by the world. In the former, we realize that the fall is of our own making, and maybe learn something about how we might behave in a manner better fitted to our world. In the latter, the fall is an inevitable consequence of the laws of nature and history.<br /><br />I always thought of Anthropocene historiography as Radical, but as you point out here, it could equally well be taken in a Conservative direction. As if we didn't have enough to worry about.<br /><br />Looking forward to reading the next installment!Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18194354174479536249noreply@blogger.com