Managing the Unknown : : Essays on Environmental Ignorance / / ed. by Uwe Lübken, Frank Uekötter.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• MitwirkendeR: Altenburg, Cornelia,; Finlay, Mark R.,; Gorman, Hugh S.,; Graf, Rüdiger,; Herrington, Susan,; Lübken, Uwe,; Schorr, David B.,; Sparenberg, Ole,; Uekötter, Frank,
• HerausgeberIn: Lübken, Uwe,; Uekötter, Frank,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Environment in History: International Perspectives ; 3
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (208 p.)

Information is crucial when it comes to the management of resources. But what if knowledge is incomplete, or biased, or otherwise deficient? How did people define patterns of proper use in the absence of cognitive certainty? Discussing this challenge for a diverse set of resources from fish to rubber, these essays show that deficient knowledge is a far more pervasive challenge in resource history than conventional readings suggest. Furthermore, environmental ignorance does not inevitably shrink with the march of scientific progress: these essays suggest more of a dialectical relationship between knowledge and ignorance that has different shapes and trajectories. With its combination of empirical case studies and theoretical reflection, the essays make a significant contribution to the interdisciplinary debate on the production and resilience of ignorance. At the same time, this volume combines insights from different continents as well as the seas in between and thus sketches outlines of an emerging global resource history.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. The Social Functions of Ignorance -- 1. Guayule Fever -- 2. Thinking in Cycles -- 3. The Forests of Canada -- 4. Forest Law in Mandate Palestine -- 5. Perception and Use of Marine Biological Resources under National Socialist Autarky Policy -- 6. Ignorance Is Strength -- 7. Expert Estimates of Oil-Reserves and the Transformation of “Petroknowledge” in the Western World from the 1950s to the 1970s -- 8. Reducing Uncertainties with Scenarios? -- Notes on Contributors -- Selected Bibliography -- Index