Civilizing nature: national parks in global historical perspective

Abstract

Civilizing nature: parks in global historical perspective, edited by Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Hohler and Patrick Kupper, New York, Berghahn Books, 2012, x + 294 pp., US$95.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-8574-5525-3 From Banff to Blue Mountain, Chitwan to Swiss, Triglav to Tongariro to, of course, Yellowstone, the term national imbues places with special significance and prestige. What makes natural features national, though, and what exactly was and is the purpose of a park? The admirable if eclectic volume Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective brings together an appealing array of scholars to describe and discuss how the term national has been perceived and used worldwide. While taking readers on a whirlwind tour of places--20-odd parks in more than 16 countries in 13 chapters--it explores ideas of territorialization, nationalism, and globalization in an ecological milieu and, in turn, puts wilderness, nature, and preservation in much-needed political and cultural context. Although it does not claim to be comprehensive (South America is barely mentioned), it does, as the subtitle promises, provide a thorough grounding in political history and the history of conservation worldwide. Contributions are loosely divided into three parts. In the first--Parks and Empires--protected areas are presented as settings within which issues of colonialism, postcolonialism, and identity play out in North America, Europe, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and North and East Africa; nature and wilderness are appropriated, reappropriated, seen, and re-envisioned as acts of dominance and symbolism. Chapters in the second part--Organizations and Networks--discuss international efforts to define the term park and transnational developments in environmental sciences and conservation. The last section, in which authors analyze motivations behind the creation of parks in Mexico, the Netherlands, India, and Slovenia, nicely exemplifies the themes of Nations and Natures. Stylistically, writing flows well from chapter to chapter and does not rely on too much specialized jargon or place-specific terminology, making the book appropriate for undergraduate- and graduate-level college courses as well as research libraries. Some researchers and instructors interested in political geography, historical geography, environmental ethics, land management, wildlife biology, landscape ecology, and human-environment relations, in general, may be tempted to pick and choose particular readings (interested in Malaysia or the Maori? Part I. …