March 29, 2024

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Daniel R.  Hedrick: "Submit the Earth" - Man and Nature

Daniel R. Hedrick: “Submit the Earth” – Man and Nature

It is a romantic picture we sometimes have of the original relationship between man and his environment: of indigenous peoples living or living peacefully in harmony with nature – until modern civilization, capitalism, or industrialization destroyed this idyllic setting.


A conflict as old as humanity itself

On the other hand, writes Daniel R. Hedrick human history from the beginning as a constant struggle against nature and its forces. From the appearance of the first man who walked upright until the present day. He talks about the effects of meteor showers and droughts, irrigation techniques and floods, epidemics and insect pestilences, and mankind’s constant struggle for survival.

However, it is not a stark show of survival that Hedrick is making a linguistic lead here. It seems dry, almost mathematically sober, when he casually calculates over and over how many people died from this or that plague in the fourth century so and so.

However, the dryness of language also corresponds to the book’s main weakness: For long periods, Hedrick remains purely descriptive and focused on information. After most of the long chapters of this work, over 600 pages thick, Hedrick crafts an epilogue of only half a page that puts it in context.

Parallels in history

While the historical fates of many civilizations are often unknown, they always follow the same pattern: once man gains the upper hand and overexploits nature, it quickly leads to disaster. What looks supposedly monotonous is actually quite entertaining. For Hedrick explains all this with many, sometimes strange, anecdotes.

When he talks about the climatic shocks and epidemics of past eras, he also deals with the big questions of our time. The brutal setbacks that human civilization has had to endure time and time again leave one feeling sick to read.

A costly victory for humanity

Hedrick cannot and does not want to take that nagging feeling away from us: whether it’s environmental pollution from continuous industrialization, the massive species extinction of our time, overfishing and ocean acidification, and largely irreversible climate damage. In a pessimistic and at the same time realistic way, the author describes how humanity has conquered nature at the present time and actually “subjugated” it.

But it also describes how humanity will have to bear dire consequences from now on. The last sentence of the book is significant: “Whatever happens, people will likely look back on our times with envy.”