REVIEWS
“Tyrrell is the most insightful and significant scholar of transnational US history. In Crisis of the Wasteful Nation he shows again that the enduring theme of American exceptionalism is best examined and revised through global comparative and transnational contexts. This is an important, new, and nuanced framing of the interrelated realms of natural resource use, physical health, and national strength.”
— David Wrobel, University of Oklahoma
“It has long seemed odd that Theodore Roosevelt was as much at ease camping with John Muir as he was hobnobbing with emperors and their finely dressed diplomats. In this fascinating and original book, Tyrrell demonstrates that the two strains of conservationism and great power diplomacy were actually linked in important ways. Anyone interested in Roosevelt, the Progressive Era, conservationism, or diplomacy should read Crisis of the Wasteful Nation.”
— Kurk Dorsey, University of New Hampshire
“Tyrrell’s Crisis of the Wasteful Nation offers a masterful solution to an important historical puzzle: How did US imperial expansion and growing American engagement with international reform currents shape the scope, program, and limitations of the Progressive conservation movement? As Tyrrell demonstrates, no figure better exemplifies the strong, sometimes surprising, and mostly unexamined connections between empire and conservation than Theodore Roosevelt. This is transnational environmental history of the very best sort.”
— Thomas Andrews, University of Colorado-Boulder
“No scholar has done more than Tyrrell to dispel the enduring myth of American exceptionalism. Here he takes on seemingly the most American of movements, the Progressive conservation movement, placing it into its transnational context and tying it to America’s expanding global ambitions. Finally we have a history that connects early environmental conservation with the nation’s settler colonial past and its imperial future. With his characteristic intelligence, Tyrrell has completely rewritten a major chapter in American history.”
— Linda Nash, University of Washington
“Crisis of the Wasteful Nation is a masterful study of the ways in which progressive conservation, so often mischaracterized as a distinctly American crusade, was part of a world movement that had the dynamics of empire at its core. Once again, Tyrrell shows us the revisionist power of writing American history as if the rest of the world matters.”
— Paul S. Sutter, University of Colorado, Boulder
“Tyrrell presents both sides of the conservation discussion at the time when the practice involved not just trees, soils, and animals but also people as America’s resources. . . . An academic analysis for conservationists or environmentalists who seek to understand the beginning of the conservation movement.”
— Library Journal
“[A] trenchant, transnational chronicle. . .”
— Nature
“Tyrrell has conducted much research on America’s connections to the rest of the world. His latest book finds connections between two ostensibly separate developments around 1900: conservation and the growth of American imperialism. President Theodore Roosevelt was famously active in both movements, which Tyrrell shows were not separate after all. . . . Highly recommended.”
— Choice
“Whether concerned with forests, fuel, water, or soil resources, a chain of powerful anxieties configured Progressive imaginations, he argues. Tyrrell uncovers a Progressive Era America driven less by optimistic reformist politics and more by fears of resource exhaustion and civilizational collapse. . . . Tyrrell’s study offers a powerful reminder that the blinkers of American exceptionalism, particularly regarding our understanding of a supposedly homegrown conservation movement, should not block our view of its international roots.”
— Journal of American History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Abbreviations
Part I: The Origins of Alarm
Chapter One / Alarmism and the Wasteful Nation - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0001
[alarmism, natural resources, waste, efficiency, empire, settler colonialism, anti-conservationism, neo-mercantilism]
Summarises the roots of alarm over the misuse of natural resources in the United States and their connection to both European and American imperial expansion, both informal and formal from the 1890s to 1910, and to American ideas of an inland empire of a rationalized settler society type comparable with settler nations developing in the British Empire. Analyses opposition to conservation, while stressing the degree of consensus over the issue. Explains the different types of “empire”: insular, formal and informal, and continental; qualifies the idea of an Open Door policy and its implications for resource use, and advances the concept of neo-mercantilism as an aspect of conservationist concern. Argues that conservation evolved over time, widened in scope and became central to the Progressive agenda by 1909. The relationship of conservation to transnational themes such as efficiency and waste is critically assessed. (pages 3 - 20)
This chapter is available at:
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Chapter Two / American Conservation and the “World Movement”: Networks, Personnel, and the International Context - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0002
[international organizations, professional groups, networks, media, forestry, Gifford Pinchot]
Documents the rise of international concern over the depletion of wildlife and other resources on a global level and how that concern connected with and became articulated into American conservation. This was achieved through international organizational contacts, the mobilization of professional networks, media-savvy politics, and reform group cooptation. Stresses the importance of a perceived global forestry crisis and of Gifford Pinchot’s central role as Roosevelt’s advisor. (pages 21 - 36)
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Part II: The New Empire and the Rise of Conservation
Chapter Three / Colonies, Natural Resources, and Geopolitical Thought in the New Empire - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0003
[intellectual history, imperialism, natural resources, tropicality, geopolitical thought]
Discusses the role of geopolitical ideas as both reflecting and stimulating concern over resource waste and competition on an international level. In succession, the views of Benjamin Kidd, William Eliot Griffis, Brooks Adams, and Frank Buffington Vrooman on natural resources, imperialism and conservation are considered, and their role as armchair architects of American empire is assessed. Controversies over the efficacy of “white” colonialism in the tropics and the importance of the idea of tropicality as a problematic are stressed. (pages 39 - 54)
This chapter is available at:
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Chapter Four / Encountering the Tropical World: The Impact of Empire - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0004
[tropicality, plant exchange, acclimatization, Philippine Islands, forestry]
Focuses on the practical experience of an encounter with new tropical colonies and potential colonies or spheres of informal influence in the underdeveloped/colonial world. Analyses the rise and role of the Bureau of Plant Industry and the work of David Fairchild to adapt tropical plants for the American insular empire and for other tropical and sub-tropical places as well as for domestic markets and farm products. Examines American responses to tropical forest riches in the Philippine Islands, and the assessment of forestry officials regarding the resources available for the colonial government there, and in Puerto Rico and Hawaii; discusses the relationship between the acquisition of formal colonies and the development of American tropical forestry. The impact of the acquisition of these forests on U.S. mainland forestry policy and on a discourse of forest shortage is examined along with the implications for wider conservation issues both for the United States and the rest of the world. (pages 55 - 78)
This chapter is available at:
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Chapter Five / Energy and Empire: Shadows of the Fossil Fuel Revolution - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0005
[fossil fuels, energy, empire, intergenerational equity, greenhouse theory, renewable and non-renewable resources]
Examines anxieties over the rapid expansion of fossil fuel use in American industry from the 1870s to 1908. Treats in turn coal, oil and gas waste, and emphasises the links that geopolitical theorists, politicians, and technical experts drew between energy use and growing American global power. The rise of intergenerational equity as a concept and its causes are considered as bound closely to fossil fuel and other mineral supply issues. Speculation over the impacts of fossil fuels on the cost of living, class relations, and the aesthetics of landscape are detailed in turn, along with brief discussion of renewable energy alternatives. An incipient debate about global climate change began but, for the most part, did not reach the level of government policy and was diluted in its impact partly by technological optimism, and by belief that administrative-driven deferral of unnecessary resource use could forestall potentially dire consequences. (pages 79 - 98)
This chapter is available at:
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Chapter Six / Dynamic Geography: Irrigation, Waterways, and the Inland Empire - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0006
[irrigation, inland waterways, international networks, Panama Canal, William John McGee, race]
Irrigation reform centred on the National Reclamation Act of 1902 is put in an international context, and its role in the creation of an “inland empire” to match the overseas empires of European powers is detailed. It is argued that water reform could unite imperialists and anti-imperialists in a nation-building program focused on expanded demographic carrying capacity. Water reforms must be understood as a response to local lobbying from interest groups and to development of international exchanges of information regarding irrigation projects. Francis Newlands, as a legislative facilitator of national irrigation reform and support for Theodore Roosevelt, is discussed. The Panama Canal provided inspiration for the spread of government intervention from irrigation in the arid West to a national scheme for rational allocation of water, taking account of both scarcity and abundance in different regions, and developing the potential of hydroelectric power and other multiple purpose uses of water resources. The linkages between water reform, demographic anxieties, racial desires and geopolitical strength are articulated in the work of William John McGee and the Inland Waterways Commission. (pages 99 - 126)
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Chapter Seven / The Problem of the Soils and the Problem of the Toilers - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0007
[soil erosion, rural decline, Commission on Country Life, Horace Plunkett, sustainable agriculture]
The end of the frontier in 1890 as proclaimed by Frederick Jackson Turner has been exaggerated, but fears over soil depletion and declining agricultural yields spread due to pro- imperialist and neo-mercantilist concerns for the withering of the agricultural basis of American power. Resistance to alarmism developed within the US Department of Agriculture; reform became manifest not so much over the conservation of soils, though a beginning was made, as in the search for the sustainability of rural life. This chapter documents the rationale for and the concepts behind the Commission on Country Life, showing that rural life was viewed as a potential resource for preserving an aesthetic counter to the ills of industrial society. Further, it is argued, Roosevelt and his advisors proposed reform of rural life as a conservation measure understood as environmental and social sustainability, and as a racial foundation for national power. (pages 127 - 144)
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Chapter Eight / Conservation, Scenery, and the Sustainability of Nature - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0008
[national parks and monuments, Niagara Falls, American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Horace McFarland, American Civic Association, scenic beauty, wildlife protection, sustainability]
Contextualizes Roosevelt’s role as the creator of national parks, wildlife refuges, and national monuments; shows important political connections with Representatives John F. Lacey and others in fostering the conservation agenda; addresses the neglected role of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society and its officials links with Roosevelt, and its alliance with the American Civic Association led by Horace McFarland. Examines the transfer of lobbying tactics from moral reform and missionary support groups to conservation. Emphasizes the role of scenic beauty in conservation and its relationship with a critique of the aesthetic and moral impacts of industrial society; examines the hitherto neglected importance of the international campaign for preservation of Niagara Falls and its impact on conservation strategies and tactics. Documents the roles of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley dam proposap, international park models, and tourism competition in spurring systemic national park policy and development. (pages 145 - 172)
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Chapter Nine / Lessons for Living: Irving Fisher, National Vitality, and Human Conservation - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0009
[racial thought, eugenics, public health, Irving Fisher]
Argues that conservation came to encompass human health as part of social and environmental sustainability; stresses the role of Irving Fisher in this campaign; and examines ideas of race suicide and eugenics in conservation. Argues that inter-imperial evidence for connections between racial deterioration, military strength and economic efficiency underpinned the developing human conservation movement towards the end of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, but eugenics became important only after the end of that presidency. These themes were presaged in Fisher’s National Vitality which was part of the 1909 Report of the National Conservation Commission. (pages 173 - 188)
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Part III: The Global Vision of Theodore Roosevelt and Its Fate
Chapter Ten / To the Halls of Europe: The African Safari and Roosevelt’s Campaign to Conserve Nature (While Killing It) - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0010
[hunting, conservation, efficiency, settler colonialism, media, imperialism]
Covers Roosevelt’s post-presidential safari in East Africa and his subsequent visits to Egypt and Europe. While the hunting aspect of the African trip is important, the visit was framed to promote conservation and imperialism as fundamental to the colonial world’s economic progress. Examines the contradictions in Roosevelt’s practice between his love of hunting and pursuit of strenuous manhood on the one hand and his concern for species depletion and extinction on the other. This contradiction was resolved through the idea of white settler societies as a model for colonial modernization that would balance development and conservation. His cultivation of missionaries is assessed as part of this approach. Roosevelt’s trip to Europe also enabled him to extend his conservation agenda globally, and to parade as a world leader, thereby embodying his sense of the U.S. arrival as a major imperial power in a world of empires, within which he believed the United States must be an active participant. The role of media and Roosevelt’s use of “news” is stressed throughout. (pages 191 - 206)
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Chapter Eleven / Something Big: Theodore Roosevelt and Global Conservation - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0011
[World Conservation Congress, North American Conservation Conference, Bailey Willis, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, settler colonialism, dry-land farming]
Towards the end of 1908 Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot proposed two international conservation moves to cap Roosevelt’s achievements as president. In February 1909 North American Conservation Conference met and agreed upon principles for conservation of the whole continent’s natural resources, including water and wildlife. Roosevelt also proposed a World Conservation Congress for The Hague to duplicate the National Conservation Commission and its inventory of U.S. resources. He aimed to prevent the waste that accompanied American development of natural resources in the nineteenth century being duplicated globally. The idea elicited European support, particularly in Britain, but also in Latin America and across the British Empire. Due to disagreements over Roosevelt’s executive style, his successor Taft refrained from active support for this plan, and the idea was scotched in 1911. However Roosevelt’s brand of conservation combining both preservation and development found support, especially in settler societies such as Canada and Argentina. The significance of Roosevelt’s ideas for these places and Mexico is assessed. The case of Bailey Willis as an advisor to the Argentinean Government is discussed in detail. (pages 207 - 232)
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Chapter Twelve / “A Senseless and Mischievous Fad?” : From Alarm to Sobriety as a Nation Takes Stock - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0012
[Ballinger Affair, progressivism, William Howard Taft, pan-Americanism, neo-mercantilism, rural reform]
Examines the aftermath of Roosevelt’s presidential conservation measures; demonstrates continuity in conservation policies between Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; and documents disagreements over the Ballinger Affair which ultimately pulled the Progressive conservation movement into open opposition to Taft. While conservation moved to the center of Progressivism as it continued to develop, the decline of alarmism about resources is charted through changing assessments of resource availability, and the work of fuel expert Joseph Holmes to improve engine and boiler efficiencies and other fossil fuel conservation. The impact of Roosevelt’s schemes for efficiency continued internationally through the (British) Dominions Royal Commission on Natural Resources, and in the Fourth Pan-American Science Congress in 1915-16, where Roosevelt’s ideas influenced the proceedings through the work of Gifford Pinchot and his allies. Tropical forestry research in the United States and its dependencies expanded, while neo-mercantilist trading blocs sought to secure raw materials for long-term use for capitalist development, in the U.S. case centred on Latin America. The consummation of the Country Life campaign occurred through action in the U.S. Congress and internationally in David Lubin’s work for the International Institute of Agriculture. (pages 233 - 250)
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Epilogue / The Present, the Future, and the Power of Contingency in Human Life - Ian Tyrrel
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197937.003.0013
[intergenerational equity, World War I, efficiency, resource dependency, scientific management]
Analyses contradictions within Progressive conservation for simultaneous development and preservation of natural resources. Shows how Progressivism both exhibited and spurred interest in ideas of intergenerational equity, pioneered academically in the work of Lewis C. Gray. Examines the contingent roles of internal American political disagreements over the conservation program, as well World War I, in undermining intergenerational equity. The chapter shows also how Progressive conservation survived in the 1920s in modified and attenuated form; it explores the roles of scientific management and efficiency in mass production in narrowing conservation and undermining environmental and social sustainability. Traces the roots of the search for foreign resources to underpin the US consumer economy’s expansion, especially for oil, rubber and forest products. (pages 251 - 262)
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Notes
Index
