Nature in German History - Studies in German History

Publisher Marketing: "This inspiring, well illustrated survey, provided with a useful index...opens up, for the first time, for the non-German reader possibilities for fascinating international perspectives." . Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, D. C. Germany is a key test case for the burgeoning field of environmental history; in no other country has the landscape been so thoroughly politicized throughout its past as in Germany, and in no other country have ideas of 'nature' figured so centrally in notions of national identity. The essays collected in this volume - the first collection on the subject in either English or German - place discussions of nature and the human relationship with nature in their political co texts. Taken together, they trace the gradual shift from a confident belief in humanity 's ability to tame and manipulate the natural realm to the "Umweltbewusstsein" driving the contemporary conservation movement. "Nature in German History" also documents efforts to reshape the natural realm in keeping with ideological beliefs - such as the Romantic exultation of 'the wild' and the Nazis' attempts to eliminate 'foreign' flora and fauna - as well as the ways in which political issues have repeatedly been transformed into discussions of the environment in Germany. Christof Mauch is presently Director of the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Germany and since 2007 Professor of American Cultural History and Transatlantic Relations at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen. From 1999 to 2007, he was the director of the German Historical Institute in Washington D. C Contributor Bio:  Mauch, Christof Christof Mauch is Director of the Rachel Carson Center and Director of the Lasky Center for Transatlantic Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich. Before joining Munich University, he was the Director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D. C. Dr Mauch is the author or editor of more than 30 books, some of them award-winning, including Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History (2009, edited with Christian Pfister), The World Beyond the Windshield: Landscapes and Roads in Europe and North America (2008, edited with Thomas Zeller), Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America History (2008, edited with Thomas Zeller), Shadow War Against Hitler (2003), and Berlin - Washington, 1800 2000 (2005, edited with Andreas Daum).