Models Of Nature

Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia

Douglas R. Weiner

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2000
• eBook ISBN: 9780822972150
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

With a new afterword by the authorA study of the early and turbulent years of the Soviet conservation movement. Focusing on the period from the October Revolution to the mid-1930s (from Lenin's rule to the rise of Stalin), Douglas R. Weiner studies the divergence between the growing ecological movement in the country and the state's social and economic policies. The book offers a view of both sides of this dispute: scientific conservation movements on the one hand and an industrializing nation's attitude toward science, scientists, nature, and massive development on the other. Weiner explains the development of pioneering conservation institutions, state practices, and ecological theory in the Soviet Union during the 1920s , and why those developments were sidelined or quashed by Stalin. The book provides a telling example of the social construction of science, showing how the perceived political implications of rival ecological theories influenced Soviet scientists, and chronicles the nature protection movement's conflicts with both the vigilantes of the Cultural Revolution and Stalin's first Five-Year Plan, which blatantly ignored potential environmental consequences in its quest to industrialize on a large scale.The new afterword reflects upon the study's impact and discusses advances in the field since the book was first published. Now in paperback, this classic text is well suited for course use in Russian history, environmental studies, and history of science.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Monuments of Nature
• Chapter 2. Conservation and Revolution
• Chapter 3. Conservation under the NEP
• Chapter 4. The Limits to Growth
• Chapter 5. The Goskomitet and the Zapovedniki
• Chapter 6. Models of Nature: The Zapovedniki and Community Ecology
• Chapter 7. The Conservation Congress of 1929
• Chapter 8. The Cultural Revolution Comes to Biology
• Chapter 9. Protective Coloration
• Chapter 10. Conservation and the Five-Year Plan
• Chapter 11. The Great Transformation of Nature
• Chapter 12. Engineers of Nature
• Chapter 13. The First All-Union Conservation Congress
• Chapter 14. Conservation without Ecology: Nature Protection in the Age of Lysenko
• Conclusion
• Afterword
• Appendix 1. Soviet Zapovedniki: Affiliation, Area, and Administrative Status, 1925–1933
• Appendix 2. Zapovedniki of the USSR in 1933
• Acronyms
• Glossary
• Abbreviations Used in Notes and Bibliography
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Map of Soviet Zapovedniki circa 1933
• Photographs and Illustrations