Managing the Unknown

Frank Uekötter is Reader at the School of History and Cultures of the University of Birmingham. His publications include The Age of Smoke. Environmental Policy in Germany and the United States, 1880-1970 (2009), The Green and the Brown. A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (2006) and, as editor, The Turning Points of Environmental History (2010). He is currently working on a global resource history.

“This is an interesting and well written set of essays that provides fresh and illuminating insights on many important topics, which makes it indispensible to practitioners and students of environmental history across the globe. Indeed, because it comments on so many topical issues, it should be of interest to anyone concerned about current environmental problems, their origins and possible solutions (especially making manufacturing, forestry and farming sustainable, controlling waste and pollution and finding renewable energy sources). The chapters are of a uniformly high standard and the introduction expertly places them in context.”  ·  Tom Brooking, University of Otago

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: The Social Functions of IgnoranceFrank Uekötter and Uwe LübkenChapter 1. Guayule Fever. Los Knowledge and Struggles for a Natural Rubber Reserve in the American WestMark R. FinlayChapter 2. Thinking in Cycles. Flows of Nitrogen and Sustainable Uses of the EnvironmentHugh S. GormanChapter 3. The Forests of Canada. Seeing the Forests for the TreesSusan HerringtonChapter 4. Forest Law in the Palestine Mandate. Colonial Conservation in a Unique ContextDavid SchorrChapter 5. Perception and Use of Marine Biological Resources under National Socialist Autarky PolicyOle SparenbergChapter 6. Ignorance is Strength. Science-based Agriculture and the Merits of Incomplete KnowledgeFrank UekötterChapter 7. Expert Estimates of Oil-Reserves and the Transformation of “Petroknowledge” in the Western World from the 1950s to the 1970sRüdiger GrafChapter 8. Reducing Uncertainty with Scenarios?Cornelia AltenburgList of ContributorsSelect Bibliography