Industrialized Nature: Brute Force Technology and the Transformation of the Natural World [Hardcover]

Paul Josephson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1559637773 | ISBN-13: 978-1559637770 | Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Edition: 1

In this volume Josephson provides an examination of the ways in which science, engineering, policy, finance and hubris have come together, often with unforeseen consequences, to perpetuate what he calls "brute-force technologies" - large-scale systems created to manage water, forest and fish resources. Throughout the 20th century, nations with quite different political systems and economic orientations all pursued this same technological subjugation of nature. Josephson compares the Soviet Union's heavy-handed efforts at resource management to similar projects undertaken in the US, Norway, Brazil and China. He argues that "brute-force technologies" require brute-force politics to operate. He shows how irresponsible - or well-intentioned but misguided - large-scale manipulation of nature has resulted in resource loss and severe environmental degradation. He explores the ongoing industrialization of nature that is happening in our own backyards and around the world. Both a cautionary tale and a call for action, Josephson urges us to consider how to develop a future for succeeding generations that avoids the pitfalls of brute-force technologies.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The deleterious ripple effects of large-scale efforts at altering nature to serve human needs is historian Josephson's compelling subject. Not only is he an expert on what he calls brute-force technology--massive dams, irrigation systems, and forest clear-cuts--he's also dedicated to studying the plexus of science, politics, economics, and social circumstances connected to such complicated undertakings. Having written about the Soviet nuclear industry in Red Atom (1999), he now offers striking comparisons between Soviet "hero projects" (exercises in overkill) and those of the U.S and Brazil, chronicling, along the way, the 1930s hydroelectric race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. (a precursor to the arms and space races). The precipitous development of the Pacific Northwest, Siberia, and the Amazon, Josephson explains, involved the building of highly destructive "corridors of modernization" to bring people and technology deep into the wilderness to aggressively exploit and inadvertently waste natural resources. Eye-opening, dramatic, and painstakingly researched, Josephson's unique history of the hubristic ambitions and irreparable environmental and social devastation associated with twentieth-century attempts to turn rivers into machines and forests, fields, and oceans into factories is an invaluable primer on what not to do in the future. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Paul R. Josephson is associate professor of history at Colby College. He is the author of Red Atom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today (Freeman, 1999), Totalitarian Science and Technology (Humanities, 1996), and New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science (Princeton, 1997), which won the Shulman Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. He has published articles in Physics Today, The Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559637773
• ISBN-13: 978-1559637770
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.