The ideal river: How control of nature shaped the international order

Synopsis

Environmental politics has traditionally been a peripheral concern for international relations theory, but increasing alarm over global environmental challenges has elevated international society’s relationship with the natural world into the theoretical limelight. IR theory’s engagement with environmental politics, however, has largely focused on interstate cooperation in the late twentieth century, with less attention paid to how the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century quest to tame nature came to shape the modern international order.The ideal river examines nineteenth-century efforts to establish international commissions on three transboundary rivers – the Rhine, the Danube, and the Congo. It charts how the Enlightenment ambition to tame the natural world, and human nature itself, became an international standard for rational and civilized authority and informed our geographical imagination of the international. This relationship of domination over nature shaped three core IR concepts central to the emergence of early international order: the territorial sovereign state; imperial hierarchies; and international organizations. The book contributes to environmental politics and international relations by highlighting how the relationship between society and nature is not a peripheral concern, but one at the heart of international politics.

Copyright:

2022

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781526154392

Related ISBNs:

9781526154385, 9781526154378, 9781526154385, 9781526154378, 9781526154385, 9781526154378

Publisher:

Manchester University Press

Date of Addition:

09/02/22

Copyrighted By:

N/A

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Outdoors and Nature, Law, Legal Issues and Ethics, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.