Engineering Nature (Paperback)

Jessica B. Teisch

ISBN 10: 0807871761 / ISBN 13: 9780807871768

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2011

About this Item

Paperback. Focusing on globalization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jessica Teisch examines the processes by which American water and mining engineers who rose to prominence during and after the California Gold Rush of 1849 exported the United States' growing technical and environmental knowledge and associated social and political institutions. In the frontiers of Australia, South Africa, Hawaii, and Palestine--semiarid regions that shared a need for water to support growing populations and economies--California water engineers applied their expertise in irrigation and mining projects on behalf of foreign governments and business interests. Engineering Nature explores how controlling the vagaries of nature abroad required more than the export of blueprints for dams, canals, or mines; it also entailed the problematic transfer of the new technology's sociopolitical context. Water engineers confronted unforeseen variables in each region as they worked to implement their visions of agrarian settlement and industrial growth, including the role of the market, government institutions, property rights, indigenous peoples, labor, and, not last, the environment. Teisch argues that by examining the successes and failures of various projects as American influence spread, we can see the complex role of globalization at work, often with incredibly disproportionate results. |Teisch examines the processes by which American water and mining engineers exported the United States' growing technical and environmental knowledge and associated social and political institutions to the developing twentieth-century frontiers of Australia, South Africa, Hawaii, and Palestine. Teisch argues that these engineers became early agents of the persistent, uneven spread of technology and wealth to developing nations. Engineering Nature: Water, Development, and the Global Spread of American Environmental Expertise Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780807871768

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Engineering Nature (Paperback)
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807871761
• ISBN 13: 9780807871768
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Focusing on globalization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Jessica Teisch examines the processes by which American water and mining engineers who rose to prominence during and after the California Gold Rush of 1849 exported the United States' growing technical and environmental knowledge and associated social and political institutions. In the frontiers of Australia, South Africa, Hawaii, and Palestine — semiarid regions that shared a need for water to support growing populations and economies — California water engineers applied their expertise in irrigation and mining projects on behalf of foreign governments and business interests.

Engineering Nature explores how controlling the vagaries of nature abroad required more than the export of blueprints for dams, canals, or mines; it also entailed the problematic transfer of the new technology’s sociopolitical context. Water engineers confronted unforeseen variables in each region as they worked to implement their visions of agrarian settlement and industrial growth, including the role of the market, government institutions, property rights, indigenous peoples, labor, and, not last, the environment. Teisch argues that by examining the successes and failures of various projects as American influence spread, we can see the complex role of globalization at work, often with incredibly disproportionate results.

About the Author

Jessica B. Teisch is an independent scholar who received her Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley.