world ecology braudel marx

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ARTICLE CAPITALISM AS WORLD-ECOLOGY Braudel and Marx on Environmental History  JASON W . MOORE University of California, Berkeley This essay considers the relev ance of Fe rnand Braudel’ s world-historical studies for the theory and practice of environmental history. Arguing against the conventional view that  Braude l re gard ed the envir onment as a backdr op, the essay points to his sophisticate d layer- ing of time, space, and nature in which society and ecology actively shape each other.  Braude l’s grea test historical-g eograp hical insight is the idea that world-economies are not simply social constructions but also ecological projects. In this fashion, Braudel implicitly suggests the concept “world-ecology.” Although never spelled out in precisely these terms, the idea that ecogeographical processes permeate the ever-shifting relations of region, state, and world-economy runs like red thread through Braudel’s corpus. Braudel under- stoo d natureinterms of tran sito ry butidentifi ablesocio-e colo gica l mome nts that shap e and are shaped by a world-ecolo gical whole. Unfortunately , Braudel’ s under conceptua lized appr oach pre vented him fromidentifying with grea ter specificitycapitalism’s world-ecolo g- icalcontra dicti ons . T o bui ld effe ctive ly upo n Bra ude l’secohist oric al insig hts,we migh t turn to Marx and Engels’ ecologica l critique of capitalism.  Keywords:  capitalism; environmental history; Marx; Braudel; world-system; historical geography Lucie n Feb vr e use tosay “hist or y isman. I onthe ot herhand say:“his toryis manand everything else.” Everything is history: soil, climate, geological movements. —Fernand Braudel (1984b, p. 22, quoted in Aguirre Rojas, 1992, p. 189) To discuss ci vilization is to discuss space, land and its contours, climate, vegetation, animal species, and natural and other advantages. It is also to discuss what humanity has made of these basic conditions: agriculture, stock-breeding, food, shelter, cloth- ing, communications, industry, and so on. —Fernand Braudel (1993, pp. 9-10) The explosive growth of environmental studies in recent years has occasioned the en vir onment al rehabi lit ati on of a wide range of soc ial cri tic s, the oris ts, and his - tor ian s, ranging from Kar l Mar x to Mah atma Gan dhi to Hel en Ke lle r (Cl ark & Fos- ter, 2002; Foster, 2000; Guha, 1995). Curiously, Fernand Braudel remains unex- ami ned. T o be sure,en vir onment al his tor iansareaware of Bra ude l. But the y do not quit e know what to do wi th hi m. Wil li am Be inar t (2000) sums up the en vi ronmen- talhistor ians’cons ensus whe n he obs erv es tha t Bra ude l “te nde d to deploy en vir on- Organization & Environment , Vol. 16 No. 4, December 2003 431-458 DOI: 10.1177/1086026603259091 © 2003 Sage Publications 431 Author’s Note: The author would like to thank Diana Carol Moore Gildea, Brett Clark, Neil Brenner , and two anonymous review ers  for helpfu l suggestion s on this article in dr aft. Addr ess corr espondence to Jason W . Moor e, Department of Geography , University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; e-mail: [email protected].

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