The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment
How the United Nations Built Spaceship Earth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4156857 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rowly Brucken (Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 106 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 810-811 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaz627 |
| OpenAlex | W2991999455 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
If necessity is the mother of invention, imagination is the catalyst for the vision required for initially identifying a “necessity.” Perrin Selcer's book attempts to chart the development of post–World War II environmentalist consciousness by examining the interaction of three United Nations (Un) groups: sovereign states, an international civil service entity, and nongovernmental organizations (Ngos). The products of this engagement—international educational conferences, standardized scientific soil maps, arid-zone classification schemes, biosphere analyses, and a fractured and contested Un bureaucracy—exposed paradoxes, conflicts, and assumptions inherent in the new paradigm of “spaceship Earth.” This understanding of Earth as a closed system, with interconnected and interdependent yet largely unknown ecological parts, demanded rigorous investigation and exposure by experts. Unlocking this knowledge placed enormous faith in seemingly apolitical and objective scientists, most from the developed world. Reflecting the natural world's unity in diversity, the collection of technocrats who studied it also sought global consensus in marrying divergent perspectives on concepts of development with conservation, politics with science, and elite governance with popular democracy
Bureaucracy · Civil society · Democracy · Elite · Environmental ethics · Interdependence · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Technocracy · American Environmental and Regional History · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Public Administration
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,43 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |