Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T00:46:58.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Environments, states and societies at war

from Part I - Political Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2015

Michael Geyer
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Adam Tooze
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Get access

Summary

The Second World War was profoundly environmental as conflict transformed environments and human relationships with them. This chapter outlines various aspects of the war's environmental history through a focus on the relationship between militarized states, societies and environments during the period of totalizing warfare. Although research into war's environmental history has laid bare the complex environmental dimensions of warfare, few attempts have been made to consider the relationship between the Second World War's environmental history and totalizing war. The chapter argues that paying attention to the environment creates a fuller understanding of totalizing war between 1939 and 1945. Totalizing warfare led to the increased exploitation of natural resources, shifts in human-animal relations, and the militarization of vast swathes of national territories. Financial, labour and other constraints limited the total mobilization of the environment. Wartime nature protection efforts further limited the war's environmental repercussions, even if their overall impact was small.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×