The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany - Softcover

Blackbourn, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393329992 ISBN 13: 9780393329995

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

Majestic and lyrically written, The Conquest of Nature traces the rise of Germany through the development of water and landscape. David Blackbourn begins his morality tale in the mid-1700s, with the epic story of Frederick the Great, who attempted by importing the great scientific minds of the West and by harnessing the power of his army to transform the uninhabitable marshlands of his scattered kingdom into a modern state. Chronicling the great engineering projects that reshaped the mighty Rhine, the emergence of an ambitious German navy, and the development of hydroelectric power to fuel Germany's convulsive industrial growth before World War I, Blackbourn goes on to show how Nazi racial policies rested on German ideas of mastery of the natural world. Filled with striking reproductions of paintings, maps, and photographs, this grand work of modern history links culture, politics, and the environment in an exploration of the perils faced by nations that attempt to conquer nature."

About this title

Review:

"Startlingly original... This is history at its most synoptic, weaving together disparate themes in a counterpoint of science and aesthetics, race and reclamation, hydrology and mythology" (Daniel Johnson Sunday Times)

"This book offers a fresh insight into this passage of German history and will interest engineers, ecologists, economists, politicians and historians alike" (Bookends)

"Sublimely good... Blackbourn has found an original and suggestive way into the history of both Germany's aggrandisement and its humility... far more than a good book on an out-of-the-way subject" (The Economist)

"David Blackbourn has written an entertainingly original history, rich in insights into man and nature and the German - in fact, the European - mind" (Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Cod)

"Brilliantly conceived, David Blackbourn's thought-provoking exploration of the ambivalence built into past attempts to exploit the environment offers a wholly novel approach to understanding modern German history. His book is a tour de force in historical writing" (Ian Kershaw)

From the Publisher:

History takes place in space as well as time.This brilliant new book tells the story of how the German landscape was dramatically reshaped in the two hundred years from Frederick the Great to Adolf Hitler.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393329992
• ISBN 13: 9780393329995
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480