‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’

David Moon

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

Abstract. This paper considers the importance of borderlandregions with environments that differ from the central regions ofstates in the development of innovations in conceptualizing therelationship between human societies and the ‘natural’ world. Thesteppe in the south of the Russian Empire is taken as an example.It is argued that there were three phases to the development of newunderstandings of the Steppe environment: encounter and recognitionof difference; exploration and scientific research; and innovation. Theprincipal innovations considered are genetic soil science, devised byVasilii Dokuchaev in the 1870s-80s, and methods of cultivating thesoil to retain scarce moisture, known as dry farming. The article alsoconsiders the transformation of the steppe environment as a result ofwholesale ploughing up over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.The significance of the steppe borderland is analyzed in comparisonwith the American Great Plains, which borrowed innovations from thesteppe, and European colonialism around the globe.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEkologicheskaya istorii v Rossii
PublisherIzdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU
Pages8-31
Number of pages24
ISBN (Print)978-5-600-00830-4
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Fingerprint

global perspective
environmental history
steppe
innovation
colonialism
plowing
soil science
nineteenth century
twentieth century
moisture

Keywords

  • Russia, environmental history, steppe, soil science, dry farming

Cite this

Moon, D. (2014). ‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’. In Ekologicheskaya istorii v Rossii (pp. 8-31). Izdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU.

‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’. / Moon, David.

Ekologicheskaya istorii v Rossii. Izdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU, 2014. p. 8-31.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Moon, D 2014, ‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’. in Ekologicheskaya istorii v Rossii. Izdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU, pp. 8-31.
Moon D. ‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’. In Ekologicheskaya istorii v Rossii. Izdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU. 2014. p. 8-31
Moon, David. / ‘The Environmental History of the Steppe in a Global Perspective’. Ekologicheskaya istorii v Rossii. Izdatel'svo Elabuzhskogo instituta KFU, 2014. pp. 8-31
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