Chakrabarty_Climate of History

27 Pages·2016·0.18 MB·English

The Climate of History: Four Theses
Author(s): Dipesh Chakrabarty
Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter 2009), pp. 197-222
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/596640
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Critical Inquiry
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The Climate of History: Four Theses
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Thecurrentplanetarycrisisofclimatechangeorglobalwarmingelicits
a variety of responses in individuals, groups, and governments, ranging
from denial, disconnect, and indifference to a spirit of engagement and
activismofvaryingkindsanddegrees.Theseresponsessaturateoursense
ofthenow.AlanWeisman’sbest-sellingbookTheWorldwithoutUssug-
gestsathoughtexperimentasawayofexperiencingourpresent:“Suppose
that the worst has happened. Human extinction is a fait accompli. . . .
Pictureaworldfromwhichweallsuddenlyvanished....Mightwehave
left some faint, enduring mark on the universe? . . . Is it possible that,
instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us
wouldmissus?”1IamdrawntoWeisman’sexperimentasittellinglydem-
onstrateshowthecurrentcrisiscanprecipitateasenseofthepresentthat
disconnectsthefuturefromthepastbyputtingsuchafuturebeyondthe
grasp of historical sensibility. The discipline of history exists on the as-
sumption that our past, present, and future are connected by a certain
continuityofhumanexperience.Wenormallyenvisagethefuturewiththe
help of the same faculty that allows us to picture the past. Weisman’s
thought experiment illustrates the historicist paradox that inhabits con-
temporarymoodsofanxietyandconcernaboutthefinitudeofhumanity.
TogoalongwithWeisman’sexperiment,wehavetoinsertourselvesinto
ThisessayisdedicatedtothememoryofGregDening.
ThanksareduetoLaurenBerlant,JamesChandler,CarloGinzburg,TomMitchell,Sheldon
Pollock,BillBrown,Franc¸oiseMeltzer,DebjaniGanguly,IanHunter,JuliaA.Thomas,and
RochonaMajumdarforcriticalcommentsonanearlierdraft.Iwrotethefirstversionofthis
essayinBengaliforajournalinCalcuttaandremaingratefultoitseditor,AsokSen,for
encouragingmetoworkonthistopic.
1. AlanWeisman,TheWorldwithoutUs(NewYork,2007),pp.3–5.
CriticalInquiry35(Winter2009)
©2008byTheUniversityofChicago.0093-1896/09/3502-0004$10.00.Allrightsreserved.
197
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198 DipeshChakrabarty / TheClimateofHistory
a future “without us” in order to be able to visualize it. Thus, our usual
historicalpracticesforvisualizingtimes,pastandfuture,timesinaccessible
to us personally—the exercise of historical understanding—are thrown
intoadeepcontradictionandconfusion.Weisman’sexperimentindicates
howsuchconfusionfollowsfromourcontemporarysenseofthepresent
insofarasthatpresentgivesrisetoconcernsaboutourfuture.Ourhistor-
ical sense of the present, in Weisman’s version, has thus become deeply
destructiveofourgeneralsenseofhistory.
I will return to Weisman’s experiment in the last part of this essay.
Thereismuchinthedebateonclimatechangethatshouldbeofinterestto
thoseinvolvedincontemporarydiscussionsabouthistory.Forastheidea
gainsgroundthatthegraveenvironmentalrisksofglobalwarminghaveto
do with excessive accumulation in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases
producedmainlythroughtheburningoffossilfuelandtheindustrialized
useofanimalstockbyhumanbeings,certainscientificpropositionshave
come into circulation in the public domain that have profound, even
transformative, implications for how we think about human history or
aboutwhatthehistorianC.A.Baylyrecentlycalled“thebirthofthemod-
ernworld.”2Indeed,whatscientistshavesaidaboutclimatechangechal-
lenges not only the ideas about the human that usually sustain the
disciplineofhistorybutalsotheanalyticstrategiesthatpostcolonialand
postimperialhistorianshavedeployedinthelasttwodecadesinresponse
tothepostwarscenarioofdecolonizationandglobalization.
In what follows, I present some responses to the contemporary crisis
fromahistorian’spointofview.However,awordaboutmyownrelation-
shiptotheliteratureonclimatechange—andindeedtothecrisisitself—
maybeinorder.Iamapracticinghistorianwithastronginterestinthe
natureofhistoryasaformofknowledge,andmyrelationshiptothesci-
enceofglobalwarmingisderived,atsomeremove,fromwhatscientists
andotherinformedwritershavewrittenfortheeducationofthegeneral
public. Scientific studies of global warming are often said to have origi-
natedwiththediscoveriesoftheSwedishscientistSvanteArrheniusinthe
1890s,butself-consciousdiscussionsofglobalwarminginthepublicrealm
2. SeeC.A.Bayly,TheBirthoftheModernWorld,1780–1914:GlobalConnectionsand
Comparisons(Malden,Mass.,2004).
DIPESH CHAKRABARTY istheLawrenceA.KimptonDistinguishedService
ProfessorofHistoryandSouthAsianStudiesattheUniversityofChicagoanda
professorialfellowattheResearchSchoolofHumanitiesattheAustralian
NationalUniversity.
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CriticalInquiry / Winter2009 199
began in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the same period in which social
scientists and humanists began to discuss globalization.3 However, these
discussionshavesofarrunparalleltoeachother.Whileglobalization,once
recognized,wasofimmediateinteresttohumanistsandsocialscientists,
globalwarming,inspiteofagoodnumberofbookspublishedinthe1990s,
didnotbecomeapublicconcernuntilthe2000s.Thereasonsarenotfarto
seek. As early as 1988 James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard
InstituteofSpaceStudies,toldaSenatecommitteeaboutglobalwarming
andlaterremarkedtoagroupofreportersonthesameday,“It’stimeto
stopwaffling...andsaythatthegreenhouseeffectishereandisaffecting
ourclimate.”4Butgovernments,beholdentospecialinterestsandwaryof
politicalcosts,wouldnotlisten.GeorgeH.W.Bush,thenthepresidentof
theUnitedStates,famouslyquippedthathewasgoingtofightthegreen-
houseeffectwiththe“WhiteHouseeffect.”5Thesituationchangedinthe
2000swhenthewarningsbecamedire,andthesignsofthecrisis—suchas
the drought in Australia, frequent cyclones and brush fires, crop fail-
ures in many parts of the world, the melting of Himalayan and other
mountainglaciersandofthepolaricecaps,andtheincreasingacidity
oftheseasandthedamagetothefoodchain—becamepoliticallyand
economically inescapable. Added to this were growing concerns,
voicedbymany,abouttherapiddestructionofotherspeciesandabout
the global footprint of a human population poised to pass the nine
billionmarkby2050.6
Asthecrisisgatheredmomentuminthelastfewyears,Irealizedthatall
myreadingsintheoriesofglobalization,Marxistanalysisofcapital,sub-
altern studies, and postcolonial criticism over the last twenty-five years,
whileenormouslyusefulinstudyingglobalization,hadnotreallyprepared
meformakingsenseofthisplanetaryconjuncturewithinwhichhumanity
finds itself today. The change of mood in globalization analysis may be
seenbycomparingGiovanniArrighi’smasterfulhistoryofworldcapital-
ism,TheLongTwentiethCentury(1994),withhismorerecentAdamSmith
3. Theprehistoryofthescienceofglobalwarminggoingbacktonineteenth-century
EuropeanscientistslikeJosephFourier,LouisAgassiz,andArrheniusisrecountedinmany
popularpublications.See,forexample,thebookbyBertBolin,thechairmanoftheUN’s
IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange(1988–1997),AHistoryoftheScienceandPoliticsof
ClimateChange:TheRoleoftheIntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange(Cambridge,2007),
pt.1.
4. QuotedinMarkBowen,CensoringScience:InsidethePoliticalAttackonDr.James
HansenandtheTruthofGlobalWarming(NewYork,2008),p.1.
5. Quotedinibid.,p.228.Seealso“TooHottoHandle:RecentEffortstoCensorJim
Hansen,”BostonGlobe,5Feb.2006,p.E1.
6. See,forexample,WalterK.Dodds,Humanity’sFootprint:Momentum,Impact,andOur
GlobalEnvironment(NewYork,2008),pp.11–62.
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200 DipeshChakrabarty / TheClimateofHistory
inBeijing(2007),which,amongotherthings,seekstounderstandtheim-
plicationsoftheeconomicriseofChina.Thefirstbook,alongmeditation
on the chaos internal to capitalist economies, ends with the thought of
capitalismburninguphumanity“inthehorrors(orglories)oftheesca-
lating violence that has accompanied the liquidation of the Cold War
world order.” It is clear that the heat that burns the world in Arrighi’s
narrativecomesfromtheengineofcapitalismandnotfromglobalwarm-
ing.BythetimeArrighicomestowriteAdamSmithinBeijing,however,he
ismuchmoreconcernedwiththequestionofecologicallimitstocapital-
ism.Thatthemeprovidestheconcludingnoteofthebook,suggestingthe
distancethatacriticsuchasArrighihastraveledinthethirteenyearsthat
separate the publication of the two books.7 If, indeed, globalization and
globalwarmingarebornofoverlappingprocesses,thequestionis,Howdo
webringthemtogetherinourunderstandingoftheworld?
Not being a scientist myself, I also make a fundamental assumption
aboutthescienceofclimatechange.Iassumethesciencetoberightinits
broadoutlines.Ithusassumethattheviewsexpressedparticularlyinthe
2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mateChangeoftheUnitedNations,intheSternReview,andinthemany
booksthathavebeenpublishedrecentlybyscientistsandscholarsseeking
to explain the science of global warming leave me with enough rational
groundforaccepting,unlessthescientificconsensusshiftsinamajorway,
thatthereisalargemeasureoftruthtoanthropogenictheoriesofclimate
change.8Forthisposition,Idependonobservationssuchasthefollowing
onereportedbyNaomiOreskes,ahistorianofscienceattheUniversityof
California, San Diego. Upon examining the abstracts of 928 papers on
globalwarmingpublishedinspecializedpeer-reviewedscientificjournals
7. GiovanniArrighi,TheLongTwentiethCentury:Money,Power,andtheOriginsofOur
Times(1994;London,2006),p.356;seeArrighi,AdamSmithinBeijing:LineagesoftheTwenty-
FirstCentury(London,2007),pp.227–389.
8. Anindicationofthegrowingpopularityofthetopicisthenumberofbookspublishedin
thelastfouryearswiththeaimofeducatingthegeneralreadingpublicaboutthenatureofthe
crisis.Hereisarandomlistofsomeofthemostrecenttitlesthatinformthisessay:Mark
Maslin,GlobalWarming:AVeryShortIntroduction(Oxford,2004);TimFlannery,TheWeather
Makers:TheHistoryandFutureImpactofClimateChange(Melbourne,2005);DavidArcher,
GlobalWarming:UnderstandingtheForecast(Malden,Mass.,2007);GlobalWarming,ed.Kelly
Knauer(NewYork,2007);MarkLynas,SixDegrees:OurFutureonaHotterPlanet
(Washington,D.C.,2008);WilliamH.Calvin,GlobalFever:HowtoTreatClimateChange
(Chicago,2008);JamesHansen,“ClimateCatastrophe,”NewScientist,28July–3Aug.2007,pp.
30–34;Hansenetal.,“DangerousHuman-MadeInterferencewithClimate:AGISSModelE
Study,”AtmosphericChemistryandPhysics7,no.9(2007):2287–2312;andHansenetal.,
“ClimateChangeandTraceGases,”PhilosophicalTransactionsoftheRoyalSociety,15July2007,
pp.1925–54.SeealsoNicholasStern,TheEconomicsofClimateChange:The“SternReview”
(Cambridge,2007).
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CriticalInquiry / Winter2009 201
between 1993 and 2003, Oreskes found that not a single one sought to
refute the “consensus” among scientists “over the reality of human-
inducedclimatechange.”Thereisdisagreementovertheamountanddi-
rectionofchange.But“virtuallyallprofessionalclimatescientists,”writes
Oreskes,“agreeontherealityofhuman-inducedclimatechange,butde-
batecontinuesontempoandmode.”9Indeed,inwhatIhavereadsofar,I
havenotseenanyreasonyetforremainingaglobal-warmingskeptic.
Thescientificconsensusaroundthepropositionthatthepresentcrisis
ofclimatechangeisman-madeformsthebasisofwhatIhavetosayhere.
Intheinterestofclarityandfocus,Ipresentmypropositionsintheformof
fourtheses.Thelastthreethesesfollowfromthefirstone.Ibeginwiththe
proposition that anthropogenic explanations of climate change spell the
collapseoftheage-oldhumanistdistinctionbetweennaturalhistoryand
humanhistoryandendbyreturningtothequestionIopenedwith:How
doesthecrisisofclimatechangeappealtooursenseofhumanuniversals
whilechallengingatthesametimeourcapacityforhistoricalunderstand-
ing?
Thesis1:AnthropogenicExplanationsofClimateChangeSpell
theCollapseoftheAge-oldHumanistDistinctionbetween
NaturalHistoryandHumanHistory
Philosophersandstudentsofhistoryhaveoftendisplayedaconscious
tendency to separate human history—or the story of human affairs, as
R. G. Collingwood put it—from natural history, sometimes proceeding
even to deny that nature could ever have history quite in the same way
humanshaveit.Thispracticeitselfhasalongandrichpastofwhich,for
reasonsofspaceandpersonallimitations,Icanonlyprovideaveryprovi-
sional,thumbnail,andsomewhatarbitrarysketch.10
We could begin with the old Viconian-Hobbesian idea that we, hu-
mans,couldhaveproperknowledgeofonlycivilandpoliticalinstitutions
becausewemadethem,whilenatureremainsGod’sworkandultimately
inscrutabletoman.“Thetrueisidenticalwiththecreated:verumipsum
factum”ishowCrocesummarizedVico’sfamousdictum.11Vicoscholars
havesometimesprotestedthatVicodidnotmakesuchadrasticseparation
9. NaomiOreskes,“TheScientificConsensusonClimateChange:HowDoWeKnow
We’reNotWrong?”inClimateChange:WhatItMeansforUs,OurChildren,andOur
Grandchildren,ed.JosephF.C.DimentoandPamelaDoughman(Cambridge,Mass.,2007),pp.
73,74.
10. AlonghistoryofthisdistinctionistracedinPaoloRossi,TheDarkAbyssofTime:The
HistoryoftheEarthandtheHistoryofNationsfromHooketoVico,trans.LydiaG.Cochrane
(1979;Chicago,1984).
11. BenedettoCroce,ThePhilosophyofGiambattistaVico,trans.R.G.Collingwood(1913;
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202 DipeshChakrabarty / TheClimateofHistory
betweenthenaturalandthehumansciencesasCroceandothersreadinto
hiswritings,buteventheyadmitthatsuchareadingiswidespread.12
This Viconian understanding was to become a part of the historian’s
commonsenseinthenineteenthandtwentiethcenturies.Itmadeitsway
intoMarx’sfamousutterancethat“menmaketheirownhistory,butthey
donotmakeitjustastheyplease”andintothetitleoftheMarxistarchae-
ologistV.GordonChilde’swell-knownbook,ManMakesHimself.13Croce
seemstohavebeenamajorsourceofthisdistinctioninthesecondhalfof
thetwentiethcenturythroughhisinfluenceon“thelonelyOxfordhistor-
icist”Collingwoodwho,inturn,deeplyinfluencedE.H.Carr’s1961book,
WhatIsHistory?whichisstillperhapsoneofthebest-sellingbooksonthe
historian’scraft.14Croce’sthoughts,onecouldsay,unbeknowntohisleg-
ateesandwithunforeseeablemodifications,havetriumphedinourunder-
standing of history in the postcolonial age. Behind Croce and his
adaptations of Hegel and hidden in Croce’s creative misreading of his
predecessors stands the more distant and foundational figure of Vico.15
Theconnectionshere,again,aremanyandcomplex.Sufficeittosayfor
now that Croce’s 1911 book, La filosofia di Giambattista Vico, dedicated,
significantly,toWilhelmWindelband,wastranslatedintoEnglishin1913
bynoneotherthanCollingwood,whowasanadmirer,ifnotafollower,of
theItalianmaster.
However,Collingwood’sownargumentforseparatingnaturalhistory
fromhumanonesdevelopeditsowninflections,whilerunning,onemight
say,stillonbroadlyViconianlinesasinterpretedbyCroce.Nature,Col-
lingwoodremarked,hasno“inside.”“Inthecaseofnature,thisdistinction
betweentheoutsideandtheinsideofaneventdoesnotarise.Theeventsof
NewBrunswick,N.J.,2002),p.5.CarloGinzburghasalertedmetoproblemswith
Collingwood’stranslation.
12. SeethediscussioninPerezZagorin,“Vico’sTheoryofKnowledge:ACritique,”
PhilosophicalQuarterly34(Jan.1984):15–30.
13. KarlMarx,“TheEighteenthBrumaireofLouisBonaparte,”inMarxandFrederick
Engels,SelectedWorks,trans.pub.,3vols.(Moscow,1969),1:398.SeeV.GordonChilde,Man
MakesHimself(London,1941).Indeed,Althusser’srevoltinthe1960sagainsthumanismin
MarxwasinpartajihadagainsttheremnantsofVicointhesavant’stexts;seeE´tienneBalibar,
personalcommunicationtoauthor,1Dec.2007.IamgratefultoIanBedfordfordrawingmy
attentiontocomplexitiesinMarx’sconnectionstoVico.
14. DavidRobertsdescribesCollingwoodas“thelonelyOxfordhistoricist...,inimportant
respectsafollowerofCroce’s”(DavidD.Roberts,BenedettoCroceandtheUsesofHistoricism
[Berkeley,1987],p.325).
15. OnCroce’smisreadingofVico,seethediscussioningeneralinCeciliaMiller,
GiambattistaVico:ImaginationandHistoricalKnowledge(Basingstoke,1993),andJamesC.
Morrison,“Vico’sPrincipleofVerumisFactumandtheProblemofHistoricism,”Journalofthe
HistoryofIdeas39(Oct.–Dec.1978):579–95.
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CriticalInquiry / Winter2009 203
naturearemereevents,nottheactsofagentswhosethoughtthescientist
endeavourstotrace.”Hence,“allhistoryproperlysocalledisthehistoryof
humanaffairs.”Thehistorian’sjobis“tothinkhimselfinto[an]action,to
discernthethoughtofitsagent.”Adistinction,therefore,has“tobemade
betweenhistoricalandnon-historicalhumanactions....Sofarasman’s
conductisdeterminedbywhatmaybecalledhisanimalnature,hisim-
pulsesandappetites,itisnon-historical;theprocessofthoseactivitiesisa
naturalprocess.”Thus,saysCollingwood,“thehistorianisnotinterested
in the fact that men eat and sleep and make love and thus satisfy their
natural appetites; but he is interested in the social customs which they
createbytheirthoughtasaframeworkwithinwhichtheseappetitesfind
satisfaction in ways sanctioned by convention and morality.” Only the
historyofthesocialconstructionofthebody,notthehistoryofthebodyas
such,canbestudied.Bysplittingthehumanintothenaturalandthesocial
orcultural,Collingwoodsawnoneedtobringthetwotogether.16
IndiscussingCroce’s1893essay“HistorySubsumedundertheConcept
of Art,” Collingwood wrote, “Croce, by denying [the German idea] that
historywasascienceatall,cuthimselfatoneblowloosefromnaturalism,
andsethisfacetowardsanideaofhistoryassomethingradicallydifferent
fromnature.”17DavidRobertsgivesafulleraccountofthemoremature
positioninCroce.CrocedrewonthewritingsofErnstMachandHenri
Poincare´ to argue that “the concepts of the natural sciences are human
constructselaboratedforhumanpurposes.”“Whenwepeerintonature,”
hesaid,“wefindonlyourselves.”Wedonot“understandourselvesbestas
partofthenaturalworld.”So,asRobertsputsit,“Croceproclaimedthat
thereisnoworldbutthehumanworld,thentookoverthecentraldoctrine
ofVicothatwecanknowthehumanworldbecausewehavemadeit.”For
Croce,then,allmaterialobjectsweresubsumedintohumanthought.No
rocks, for example, existed in themselves. Croce’s idealism, Roberts ex-
plains,“doesnotmeanthatrocks,forexample,‘don’texist’withouthu-
manbeingstothinkthem.Apartfromhumanconcernandlanguage,they
neither exist nor do not exist, since ‘exist’ is a human concept that has
meaningonlywithinacontextofhumanconcernsandpurposes.”18Both
CroceandCollingwoodwouldthusenfoldhumanhistoryandnature,to
the extent that the latter could be said to have history, into purposive
humanaction.Whatexistsbeyondthatdoesnot“exist”becauseitdoesnot
existforhumansinanymeaningfulsense.
16. Collingwood,TheIdeaofHistory(1946;NewYork,1976),pp.214,212,213,216.
17. Ibid.,p.193.
18. Roberts,BenedettoCroceandtheUsesofHistoricism,pp.59,60,62.
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204 DipeshChakrabarty / TheClimateofHistory
Inthetwentiethcentury,however,otherarguments,moresociological
or materialist, have existed alongside the Viconian one. They too have
continued to justify the separation of human from natural history. One
influentialthoughperhapsinfamousexamplewouldbethebookletonthe
MarxistphilosophyofhistorythatStalinpublishedin1938,Dialecticaland
HistoricalMaterialism.ThisishowStalinputtheproblem:
Geographicalenvironmentisunquestionablyoneoftheconstantand
indispensableconditionsofdevelopmentofsocietyand,ofcourse,...
[it]acceleratesorretardsitsdevelopment.Butitsinfluenceisnotthe
determininginfluence,inasmuchasthechangesanddevelopmentof
societyproceedatanincomparablyfasterratethanthechangesand
developmentofgeographicalenvironment.Inthespaceof3000years
threedifferentsocialsystemshavebeensuccessfullysupersededin
Europe:theprimitivecommunalsystem,theslavesystemandthe
feudalsystem....Yetduringthisperiodgeographicalconditionsin
Europehaveeithernotchangedatall,orhavechangedsoslightlythat
geographytakesnonoteofthem.Andthatisquitenatural.Changes
ingeographicalenvironmentofanyimportancerequiremillionsof
years,whereasafewhundredoracoupleofthousandyearsare
enoughforevenveryimportantchangesinthesystemofhumansoci-
ety.19
For all its dogmatic and formulaic tone, Stalin’s passage captures an as-
sumption perhaps common to historians of the mid-twentieth century:
man’senvironmentdidchangebutchangedsoslowlyastomakethehis-
toryofman’srelationtohisenvironmentalmosttimelessandthusnota
subject of historiography at all. Even when Fernand Braudel rebelled
againstthestateofthedisciplineofhistoryashefounditinthelate1930s
and proclaimed his rebellion later in 1949 through his great book The
Mediterranean,itwasclearthatherebelledmainlyagainsthistorianswho
treatedtheenvironmentsimplyasasilentandpassivebackdroptotheir
historicalnarratives,somethingdealtwithintheintroductorychapterbut
forgottenthereafter,asif,asBraudelputit,“theflowersdidnotcomeback
everyspring,theflocksofsheepmigrateeveryyear,ortheshipssailona
realseathatchangeswiththeseasons.”IncomposingTheMediterranean,
Braudel wanted to write a history in which the seasons—“a history of
constant repetition, ever-recurring cycles”—and other recurrences in
19. JosephStalin,DialecticalandHistoricalMaterialism(1938),www.marxists.org/
reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
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CriticalInquiry / Winter2009 205
nature played an active role in molding human actions.20 The environ-
ment,inthatsense,hadanagentivepresenceinBraudel’spages,butthe
idea that nature was mainly repetitive had a long and ancient history in
Europeanthought,asGadamershowedinhisdiscussionofJohannGustav
Droysen.21Braudel’spositionwasnodoubtagreatadvanceoverthekind
ofnature-as-a-backdropargumentthatStalindeveloped.Butitshareda
fundamentalassumption,too,withthestanceadoptedbyStalin:thehis-
toryof“man’srelationshiptotheenvironment”wassoslowastobe“al-
mosttimeless.”22Intoday’sclimatologists’terms,wecouldsaythatStalin
andBraudelandotherswhothoughtthusdidnothaveavailabletothem
the idea, now widespread in the literature on global warming, that the
climate,andhencetheoverallenvironment,cansometimesreachatipping
point at which this slow and apparently timeless backdrop for human
actionstransformsitselfwithaspeedthatcanonlyspelldisasterforhuman
beings.
If Braudel, to some degree, made a breach in the binary of natural/
humanhistory,onecouldsaythattheriseofenvironmentalhistoryinthe
latetwentiethcenturymadethebreachwider.Itcouldevenbearguedthat
environmentalhistorianshavesometimesindeedprogressedtowardspro-
ducingwhatcouldbecallednaturalhistoriesofman.Butthereisavery
importantdifferencebetweentheunderstandingofthehumanbeingthat
thesehistorieshavebeenbasedonandtheagencyofthehumannowbeing
proposed by scientists writing on climate change. Simply put, environ-
mentalhistory,whereitwasnotstraightforwardlycultural,social,oreco-
nomic history, looked upon human beings as biological agents. Alfred
Crosby,Jr.,whosebookTheColumbianExchangedidmuchtopioneerthe
“new”environmentalhistoriesintheearly1970s,putthepointthusinhis
originalpreface:“ManisabiologicalentitybeforeheisaRomanCatholic
oracapitalistoranythingelse.”23TherecentbookbyDanielLordSmail,
OnDeepHistoryandtheBrain,isadventurousinattemptingtoconnect
knowledgegainedfromevolutionaryandneuroscienceswithhumanhis-
20. FernandBraudel,“PrefacetotheFirstEdition,”TheMediterraneanandthe
MediterraneanWorldintheAgeofPhilipII,trans.SiaˆnReynolds,2vols.(1949;London,1972),
1:20.SeealsoPeterBurke,TheFrenchHistoricalRevolution:The“Annales”School,1929–89
(Stanford,Calif.,1990),pp.32–64.
21. SeeHans-GeorgGadamer,TruthandMethod,2ded.,trans.JoelWeinsheimerand
DonaldG.Marshall(1975,1979;London,1988),pp.214–18.SeealsoBonnieG.Smith,“Gender
andthePracticesofScientificHistory:TheSeminarandArchivalResearchintheNineteenth
Century,”AmericanHistoricalReview100(Oct.1995):1150–76.
22. Braudel,“PrefacetotheFirstEdition,”p.20.
23. AlfredW.Crosby,Jr.,TheColumbianExchange:BiologicalandCulturalConsequencesof
1492(1972;London,2003),p.xxv.
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