The Conquest of Nature
豆瓣
Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany
David Blackbourn
简介
This brilliant new book explores how, over the last 250 years, the German people have shaped their natural environment and how the landscapes they created took a powerful hold on the German imagination. It investigates how the most fundamental element - water - was 'conquered' by draining fens and marshes, straightening the courses of rivers, building high dams and exploiting hydro-electric power. The book begins in the 1740s with Frederick the Great of Prussia, who regarded the reclamation of marshland as 'conquests from barbarism'. We meet Johann Gottfried Tulla, 'the man who tamed the wild Rhine' in the nineteenth century. We learn about the construction of the Prussian port of Wilhelmshaven on the Jade Bay, later to become a symbol of the new Germany's naval ambitions. We witness the colonisation of the moors and the triumph of the steamship. We encounter Otto Intze, 'master dambuilder' of the years around 1900
contents
List of Maps (p. ix)
Preface (p. xi)
Introduction: Nature and Landscape in German History (p. 3)
1. Conquests from Barbarism: Prussia in the Eighteenth Century (p. 21)
A Wilderness of Water and Marsh (p. 21)
The Lords and Masters of Nature (p. 41)
Colonists (p. 50)
Fields of Joy and Abundance (p. 62)
Paradise Lost? (p. 69)
2. The Man Who Tamed the Wild Rhine: Remaking Germany's River in the Nineteenth Century (p. 77)
The Bells of Pfotz (p. 77)
Tulla's Plan (p. 85)
Remaking the Upper Rhine (p. 93)
Winners and Losers (p. 101)
3. Golden Age: From the 1848 Revolution to the 1870s (p. 121)
The Jade Bay (p. 121)
Colonizing the Moors (p. 144)
The Triumph of the Steamship (p. 161)
Further Victories over the Powers of Nature (p. 173)
4. Dam-Building and Modern Times: From the 1880s to World War Two (p. 189)
In the Wonderland of Technology (p. 189)
Otto Intze: "Grand Master" of German Dams (p. 198)
Flood Protection, Navigation, and "White Coal" (p. 211)
With Mastery of the Water Comes the Opportunity for Conflict (p. 220)
The Impact on Environment and Landscape (p. 228)
Drowned Villages, Broken Dams (p. 236)
5. Race and Reclamation: National Socialism in Germany and Europe (p. 251)
A Gray-Dark Wilderness (p. 251)
Race, Reclamation, and Genocide (p. 261)
Conservation and Conquest (p. 278)
The Mystique of the Frontier and the "Wild East" (p. 293)
Indian Wars (p. 303)
6. Landscape and Environment in the Postwar Germanys (p. 311)
The Garden of Our Hearts: The "Lost Lands" in the East (p. 311)
The "Economic Miracle" and the Rise of Ecology (p. 322)
Implementing the Transformation of Nature in Germany (p. 335)
Epilogue: Where It All Began (p. 347)
List of Abbreviations (p. 365)
Notes (p. 367)
Bibliography (p. 435)
Illustration Credits (p. 451)
Index (p. 453)
