Comments on: History 89 Environmental History of Africa

By: JasonII

JasonII — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:00:55 +0000

You might want to point anyone interested in the hunting aspect to some of Peter Capstick’s books–they’re hardboiled, and feature sensationalized language, but they do offer an interesting view of the “great white hunter.” _The Last Ivory Hunter_ offers an anecdotal story of pre- and post- revolution Mozambique iirc. He also frequently argues against what he calls the Disney view of African wildlife (big friendly animals).

By: eb

eb — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:45:57 +0000

On the other hand, I just skimmed it: less on Africa than I remembered.

By: eb

eb — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:42:42 +0000

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting piece about Fred Soper and DDT a while back; I don't know if there's something more academic along the same lines. It might make a good discussion piece.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:30:10 +0000

Yeah, Green Land, Brown Land’s general thrust is sort of that, as is the Fairhead and Leach. It might be that a day specifically devoted to the degradation issue will be excess.

Hey, I like David’s book. What I want to use it for in this context is just to show how environmental history is one strategy for writing about precolonial history over the “longue duree”. In fact, I was almost thinking I needed to read some kind of Annales-type work in the first section of the class, for another model of how to do environmental history.

By: Fats Durston

Fats Durston — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 07:03:13 +0000

(shudder) The thought of sifting through A Green Place, A Good Place to pick something to read. I thought that a couple of the chapters from Green Land, Brown... did make the don't-blame-the-poor argument. I've assigned the Machakos chapter a couple times in a global history class, always for the last week or two, so I haven't had much luck with students actually reading it. Do you know Christopher Conte's Highland Sanctuary? Its focus is forest management over the long run--German, British, Independent--in the Usambaras in Tanzania.

By: CMarko

CMarko — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 19:31:05 +0000

In the agriculture and agronomy section, you might want to add a brief section on famines and the sometimes counterproductive results of food aid. Most students don’t seem to have thought about these issues, and the Swarthmore class that really addresses food aid has recently been retired. (Ray Hopkins in Political Science used to teach it.) Food production is a central issue in the modern African environment, and your students might find it interesting. There’s a ton of literature out there, including some fairly accessible stuff by Amartya Sen and Alex de Waal.

By: back40

back40 — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:20:19 +0000

There's another Fairhead and Leach article that may provide "a good, compact essay or chapter that strongly attacks, in an Africa-specific setting, the argument that poor people cause environmental degradation." Webs of power: forest loss in Guinea

By: CMarko

CMarko — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 01:09:16 +0000

Awesome. I wish I weren’t graduating.

By: jpool

jpool — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:58:32 +0000

Very interesting looking course. Nicely cross-fertilized with your development course. As a result it’s very different from the version of this that I’ve been toying with, in ways that make me need to rethink my approach.
On new cash crops, perhaps not what you’re looking for, but a colleague of mine at Emory, Joanna Davidson, is wrapping up a great anthro diss looking at social reproduction in a rice growing community in Guinea Bissau in a area where other communities are turning to new cash crops such as cashews. I don’t she’s published on this aspect yet, but that might be one direction to look in. I haven’t read it, but _Shea Butter Republic_ might be relavent as well.
Does material on the national parks systems come out in the section on poaching? This would seem like a good opportunity to deal with some of the material on post-colonial pastoralist communities. Terrence McCabe’s work would seem relavent there as well as Dorothy Hodgson’s.
I’d be interested in the material you settle on for that last session.
Thanks for sharing this.