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In
The Great Convergence: An Environmental History of Brics sixteen environmental historians from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa forge a dialogue, by departing from their own historical traditions to find common threads and common challenges. They focus on three basic themes, the State, the Civil Society and the historiography, to investigate the relations between nature and society over time in each country - and how these countries can face together current environmental challenges.
List of contents
- List of Maps and Figures
- Preface
- Introduction - S Ravi Rajan
- Part 1 - The State
- 1. State and Environment in Brazil: In Defence of Society - Regina Horta Duarte
- 2. Russia, State Power, and the Environment - Paul Josephson
- 3. The State of Environmental History in India - S. Ravi Rajan
- 4. The Trajectory of Contemporary China's State Involved in Environmental Issues - Xueqin Mei
- 5. The State, Science and Environmental Management in South Africa, c. 1870 to the Present - William Beinart
- PART II - Civil Society
- 6. Civil Society And Environmentalism In Brazil: The Twentieth Century's Great Acceleration - JosÃ(c) Augusto Pádua
- 7. Non-state Actors in Environmental History of Russia - Nicolai Dronin
- 8. The Environment and Civil Society in India - Radhika Krishnan
- 9. Understanding the Development of Civil Society and ENGOs in China since 1979 - Fei Sheng
- 10. From Conservation To Environmental Justice: Trends In The Relationship Between The State And Environmental Civil Society Organizations In South Africa - Farieda Khan
- PART III - Historiography
- 11. What Do Brazilian Environmental Historians Really Do? An Overview of Research and Main Themes of the Discipline - Lise Sedrez e Eunice Nodari
- 12. Russian Environmental History: A Historiographical Review - Julia Lajus
- 13. South Asian Environmental History: An Overview - S Ravi Rajan
- 14. Making New Wine in Old Casks: Environmental History in China - Shen Hou
- 15. South Africa's Environmental History: A Historiography - Sandra Swart
- Conclusion: The Great Convergence and Historiography - S Ravi Rajan
- Bibliography
- About the Editors and Contributors
- Index
About the author
Ravi Rajan is Professor in the Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
Lise Sedrez is Professor at the Institute of History, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Summary
The Great Convergence: An Environmental History of BRICS is the result of a collaborative effort in which environmental historians from Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa came together to offer new perspectives on the new and somehow intriguing entity. These scholars forged a dialogue from their own historical traditions to find common threads and common challenges. The contributors to this volume focus on three basic themes that can serve as building blocks for future research: the State, the Civil Society, and the Academia, that is, what has been written in each country on the relations between nature and society over time.
The historical perspective is crucial for understanding the environmental and social challenges which might be faced by the BRICS nations in the years to come. The past matters. It matters in understanding threads in policy making-on why certain ideals and frameworks emerged and endured. It matters to explain institutional evolution, and the efficacy or not, of governance. It matters to understand social acceptance and resistance, and of the emergence of what is often dismissed as irrational human trends.
