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E-book
Author Nelson, Arvid, 1951-

Title Cold war ecology : forests, farms, and people in the East German landscape, 1945-1989 / Arvid Nelson
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2005

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Description 1 online resource (xxi, 315 pages) : illustrations, maps
Series Yale agrarian studies series
Yale agrarian studies.
Contents Landscape and culture -- Initial conditions and reparations -- "A law would be good" : land reform -- The landscape's "socialist transformation" and flight from the countryside (1949-1961) -- The landscape transformed (1960-1961) -- Cybermarxism and innovation (1961-1971) -- The Grüneberg era and the triumph of industrial production methods (1971-1989)
Summary East Germany, its economy, and its society were in decline long before the country's political collapse in the late 1980s. The clues were there in the natural landscape, Arvid Nelson argues, but policy analysts were blind to them. Had they noted the record of the leadership's values and goals manifest in the landscape, they wouldn't have hailed East Germany as a Marxist-Leninist success story. Nelson sets East German history within the context of the landscape history of two centuries to underscore how forest and ecosystem change offered a reliable barometer to the health and stability of the political system that governed them. Cold War Ecology records how East German leaders' indifference to human rights and their disregard for the landscape affected the rural economy, forests, and population. This lesson from history suggests new ways of thinking about the health of ecosystems and landscapes, Nelson shows, and he proposes assessing the stability of modern political systems based on the environment's system qualities rather than on political leaders' goals and beliefs
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-297) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Forests and forestry -- Political aspects -- Germany (East) -- History
Forest policy -- Germany (East) -- History
Agriculture and politics -- Germany (East) -- History
Human ecology -- Germany (East) -- History
NATURE -- Natural Resources.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Environmental Economics.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Green Business.
HISTORY -- General.
Agriculture and politics
Forest policy
Forests and forestry -- Political aspects
Human ecology
Germany (East)
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780300130300
0300130309
0300106602
9780300106602
1281722510
9781281722515