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The Plough That Broke The Steppes
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Book Synopsis The Plough that Broke the Steppes by : David Moon
Download or read book The Plough that Broke the Steppes written by David Moon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first environmental history of Russia's steppes. David Moon focuses on the settlement of migrants from central Russia, Ukraine, and central Europe, and analyses how naturalists and scientists came to understand the steppe environment, including the origins of the fertile black earth.
Book Synopsis The American Steppes by : David Moon
Download or read book The American Steppes written by David Moon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the transnational movements of people, plants, agricultural sciences, and techniques from Russia's steppes to North America's Great Plains.
Book Synopsis The American Steppes by : David Moon
Download or read book The American Steppes written by David Moon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in the 1870s, migrant groups from Russia's steppes settled in the similar environment of the Great Plains. Many were Mennonites. They brought plants, in particular grain and fodder crops, trees and shrubs, as well as weeds. Following their example, and drawing on the expertise of émigré Russian-Jewish scientists, the US Department of Agriculture introduced more plants, agricultural sciences, especially soil science; and methods of planting trees to shelter the land from the wind. By the 1930s, many of the grain varieties in the Great Plains had been imported from the steppes. The fertile soil was classified using the Russian term 'chernozem.' The US Forest Service was planting shelterbelts using techniques pioneered in the steppes. And, tumbling across the plains was an invasive weed from the steppes: tumbleweed. Based on archival research in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, this book explores the unexpected Russian roots of Great Plains agriculture.
Book Synopsis The Hungry Steppe by : Sarah Cameron
Download or read book The Hungry Steppe written by Sarah Cameron and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hungry Steppe examines one of the most heinous crimes of the Stalinist regime: the Kazakh famine of 1930–33. More than 1.5 million people, a quarter of Kazakhstan's population, perished. Yet the story of this famine has remained mostly hidden from view. Sarah Cameron reveals this brutal story and its devastating consequences for Kazakh society. Through extremely violent means, the Kazakh famine created Soviet Kazakhstan, a stable territory with clear boundaries that was an integral part of the Soviet economy; and it forged a new Kazakh national identity. But ultimately, Cameron finds, neither Kazakhstan nor Kazakhs themselves integrated into Soviet society the way Moscow intended. The experience of the famine scarred the republic and shaped its transformation into an independent nation in 1991. Cameron examines the Kazakh famine to overturn several assumptions about violence, modernization, and nation-making under Stalin, highlighting the creation of a new Kazakh national identity and how environmental factors shaped Soviet development. Ultimately, The Hungry Steppe depicts the Soviet regime and its disastrous policies in a new and unusual light.
Book Synopsis The Invention of Sustainability by : Paul Warde
Download or read book The Invention of Sustainability written by Paul Warde and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking study of how sustainability became a social and political problem, and how to think about it today.
Book Synopsis Environmental Humanities in Central Asia by : Jeanne Féaux de la Croix
Download or read book Environmental Humanities in Central Asia written by Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-30 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first collection to showcase the flourishing field of environmental humanities in Central Asia. A region larger than Europe, Central Asia possesses an astounding range of environments, from deserts to glaciated peaks. The volume brings into conversation scholarship from history to social anthropology, demonstrating the contribution that interdisciplinary and engaged research offers to many urgent issues in the region: from the history of conservationism to the tactics of environmental movements, from literary engagements with ‘pure nature’ to the impact of fossil fuel extraction. The collection focuses on the Central Asian republics of the former USSR, where a complex layering of nomadic and sedentary, Turkic and Persianate, Islamic and Soviet cultures ends up affecting human relations with distinct environments. Featuring state-of-the-art contributions, the book enquires into human-environment relations through a broad-brush typology of interactive modes: to extract, protect, enspirit and fear. Broadening the scope of analysis beyond a consideration of power, the authors bring into focus alternative local cosmologies and the unintended consequences of environmental policy. The volume highlights scholarship from within Central Asia as well as expertise elsewhere, offering readers diverse modes of knowledge-production in the environmental humanities. This book is an important resource for researchers and students of the environmental humanities, sustainability, history, politics, anthropology and geography of Asia, as well as Soviet and Post-Soviet studies.
Download or read book Desert Edens written by Philipp Lehmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering. From notions about the transformation of deserts into forests to Nazi plans to influence the climates of war-torn areas, Philipp Lehmann puts the early climate change debate in its environmental, intellectual, and political context, and considers the ways this legacy reverberates in the present climate crisis. Lehmann examines some of the most ambitious climate-engineering projects to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Confronted with the Sahara in the 1870s, the French developed concepts for a flooding project that would lead to the creation of a man-made Sahara Sea. In the 1920s, German architect Herman Sörgel proposed damming the Mediterranean in order to geoengineer an Afro-European continent called “Atlantropa,” which would fit the needs of European settlers. Nazi designs were formulated to counteract the desertification of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Despite ideological and technical differences, these projects all incorporated and developed climate change theories and vocabulary. They also combined expressions of an extreme environmental pessimism with a powerful technological optimism that continue to shape the contemporary moment. Focusing on the intellectual roots, intended effects, and impact of early measures to modify the climate, Desert Edens investigates how the technological imagination can be inspired by pressing fears about the environment and civilization.
Book Synopsis Grasslands of the World by : Victor R. Squires
Download or read book Grasslands of the World written by Victor R. Squires and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book begins with a brief account of the extraordinary sequence of events that led to emergence of grasslands as major vegetation formations that now occupy some of the driest and hottest and the highest and coldest on earth as well as vast steppes and prairies in more temperate climes. It is the story of grasses successfully competing with forests and woodlands, aided and abetted by grazing herbivores and by humans and their use of fire as a tool. It is a story of adaptation to changing climates and the changing biophysical environments. A major focus of the book is the Palaearctic biogeographic realm that extends over some 45 million km2 and thus more than 1/3 of the terrestrial ice-free surface on Earth. It comprises extensive grasslands of different types and origin, which can be subdivided into (1) natural grasslands with (1a) steppes (climatogenic in dry climates), (1b) arctic-alpine grasslands (climatogenic in cold climates) and (1c) azonal and extrazonal grasslands (pedogenic and topogenic) as well as (2) secondary grasslands created and sustained by human activities, such as livestock grazing, mowing or burning. Grasslands of the Palaearctic do not only form a major basis for the agriculture of the region and thus its food supply, but are also crucial for other ecosystem services and host a supra proportional part of the realm’s plant and animal diversity. To reflect that suitability of grasslands for biodiversity strongly depends on their state, we apply the term High Nature Value grassland to those natural grasslands that are not degraded (in good state) and those secondary grasslands that are not intensified (semi-natural). The situation in a variety of countries where grasslands are evolving under the influence of global climate change is also considered. Case studies are presented on Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, India, China, South America, North America and Australia. The concluding chapter examines a set of themes arising from the chapters that make up the bulk of this book. The following provide a focus: recent history of grassland biomes – brief recap of current thinking and recent trends with special reference to dry grasslands in the Palearctic regions; the current status of grasslands and germplasm resources (biodiversity) – an overview; management systems that ensure sustainability; how to recover degraded grasslands; socio-economic issues and considerations in grassland management; the impacts of environmental problems in grasslands such as future climate change and intensification and the problems/prospects facing pastoralists and other grassland-based livestock producers.
Book Synopsis Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes by :
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 3542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes is a unique, five volume reference that provides a global synthesis of biomes, including the latest science. All of the book's chapters follow a common thematic order that spans biodiversity importance, principal anthropogenic stressors and trends, changing climatic conditions, and conservation strategies for maintaining biomes in an increasingly human-dominated world. This work is a one-stop shop that gives users access to up-to-date, informative articles that go deeper in content than any currently available publication. Offers students and researchers a one-stop shop for information currently only available in scattered or non-technical sources Authored and edited by top scientists in the field Concisely written to guide the reader though the topic Includes meaningful illustrations and suggests further reading for those needing more specific information
Book Synopsis In the Name of the Great Work by : Doubravka Olšáková
Download or read book In the Name of the Great Work written by Doubravka Olšáková and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning in 1948, the Soviet Union launched a series of wildly ambitious projects to implement Joseph Stalin’s vision of a total “transformation of nature.” Intended to increase agricultural yields dramatically, this utopian impulse quickly spread to the newly communist states of Eastern Europe, captivating political elites and war-fatigued publics alike. By the time of Stalin’s death, however, these attempts at “transformation”—which relied upon ideologically corrupted and pseudoscientific theories—had proven a spectacular failure. This richly detailed volume follows the history of such projects in three communist states—Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—and explores their varied, but largely disastrous, consequences.
Book Synopsis Minority Report by : Leonard G. Friesen
Download or read book Minority Report written by Leonard G. Friesen and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Minority Report, Leonard G. Friesen and the volume's contributors boldly reassess Mennonite history in Imperial Russia and the former Soviet Ukraine.
Download or read book Pipe Dreams written by Maya K. Peterson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A long environmental history of the Aral Sea region, focusing on colonization and development in Russian and Soviet Central Asia.
Book Synopsis Agricultural Prairies by : K. R. Krishna
Download or read book Agricultural Prairies written by K. R. Krishna and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive volume that brings together vast knowledge about agricultural prairies in one place, providing concise information and providing concise descriptions of natural resources and their influence on crop productivity. It provides detailed descriptions about natural settings as well as lucid discussions on soil fertility and crop production trends for various agricultural prairies distributed all across the earth. Chapters one through seven provide detailed descriptions on geologic aspects; physiography and agroclimate; natural vegetation and cropping history; human population, migration and development of settlements; natural resources such as soils, water, and crops; and environmental concerns. In particular, the first chapters cover the prairies of North and South America, namely, the Great Plains of North America, the Cerrado of South America, and the Pampas of South America. Chapter 4 deals with the steppes of Southern and Central Europe, Chapter 5 describes the savannahs of West Africa, Chapter 6 is concerned with Indo-Gangetic and Deccan plainsm, and Chapter 7 deals with prairies of Northeast China. The last chapter provides a comparative view of all agricultural prairies. Specifically, it compares the contrasting natural features, soil fertility, irrigation, and crop productivity. Agricultural prairies exist at levels of intensification. A few show subsistence or low input trends. Discussions pertaining to extent of intensification are included. Further, it includes interesting discussions on how the situation has grown into interdependence of man and prairies. It highlights the way prairies (crops) have influenced, naturally coaxed, and driven human activities to their own advantage.
Book Synopsis Capitalism in the Anthropocene by : John Bellamy Foster
Download or read book Capitalism in the Anthropocene written by John Bellamy Foster and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by the onset of a new, more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population. What caused this massive shift in the history of the earth? In this comprehensive study, John Bellamy Foster tells us that a globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism’s alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.
Download or read book Life of Permafrost written by Pey-Yi Chu and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By tracing the English word permafrost back to its Russian roots, this unique intellectual history uncovers the multiple, contested meanings of permafrost as a scientific idea and environmental phenomenon.
Book Synopsis Into Russian Nature by : Alan D. Roe
Download or read book Into Russian Nature written by Alan D. Roe and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Into Russian Nature examines the history of the Russian national park movement. Russian biologists and geographers had been intrigued with the idea of establishing national parks before the Great October Revolution, but pushed the Soviet government successfully to establish nature reserves (zapovedniki) during the USSR's first decades. However, as the state pushed scientists to make zapovedniki more "useful" during the 1930s, some of the system's staunchest defenders started supporting tourism in them. In the decades after World War II, the USSR experienced a tourism boom and faced a chronic shortage of tourism facilities. Also during these years, Soviet scientists took active part in Western-dominated international environmental protection organizations where they became more familiar with national parks. In turn, they enthusiastically promoted parks for the USSR as a means to reconcile environmental protection and economic development goals, bring international respect to Soviet nature protection efforts, and help instil a love for the country's nature and a desire to protect it in Russian/Soviet citizens. By the late 1980s, their supporters pushed transformative, in some cases quixotic, park proposals. At the same time, national park opponents presented them as an unaffordable luxury during a time of economic struggle, especially after the USSR's collapse. Despite unprecedented collaboration with international organizations, Russian national parks received little governmental support as they became mired in land-use conflicts with local populations. While the history of Russia's national parks illustrates a bold attempt at reform, the state's failure's to support them has left Russian park supporters deeply disillusioned. "--
Book Synopsis Eurasian Environments by : Nicholas Breyfogle
Download or read book Eurasian Environments written by Nicholas Breyfogle and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a series of essays, Eurasian Environments prompts us to rethink our understanding of tsarist and Soviet history by placing the human experience within the larger environmental context of flora, fauna, geology, and climate. This book is a broad look at the environmental history of Eurasia, specifically examining steppe environments, hydraulic engineering, soil and forestry, water pollution, fishing, and the interaction of the environment and disease vectors. Throughout, the authors place the history of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in a trans-chronological, comparative context, seamlessly linking the local and the global. The chapters are rooted in the ecological and geological specificities of place and community while unveiling the broad patterns of human-nature relationships across the planet. Eurasian Environments brings together an international group scholars working on issues of tsarist/Soviet environmental history in an effort to showcase the wave of fascinating and field-changing research currently being written.
