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Sea Level: A History de Wilko Graf von Hardenberg

Sea Level: A History: Oceans in Depth

Autor Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 16 aug 2024

Această monografie, publicată în seria Oceans in Depth de către University of Chicago Press, propune o incursiune fascinantă în istoria științei, deconstruind un concept pe care îl considerăm adesea imuabil: nivelul mării. Remarcăm modul în care Wilko Graf von Hardenberg transformă un punct de referință matematic, considerat un „zero” universal, într-un obiect de studiu complex, profund legat de ambițiile naționale și expansiunea colonială. Cartea nu este doar un tratat tehnic, ci o analiză a modului în care măsurarea oceanului a devenit un instrument politic, de la primele eforturi de cuantificare din perioada Iluminismului până la utilizarea tehnologiilor satelitare din timpul Războiului Rece.

Structura narativă este organizată cronologic și tematic, purtându-ne prin „nămolul” Veneției și Amsterdamului până la marile proiecte de infrastructură precum canalele Panama și Suez. Notăm cu interes tranziția de la capitolul „Finding Sea Level”, care explorează originile acestui standard, până la „The Rising Tide”, unde nivelul mării devine indicatorul suprem al crizei climatice actuale. Autorul demonstrează că acest punct de referință a fost întotdeauna contingent, depinzând de locație, tehnologie și interese economice.

În contextul operei sale, Sea Level continuă interesul autorului pentru intersecția dintre istoria mediului și politicile de stat, temă explorată anterior în A Monastery for the Ibex. Alternativă la Sea-Level Science de David Pugh pentru cursurile de istoria științei sau studii de mediu, lucrarea lui Hardenberg aduce avantajul unei perspective umaniste și istoriografice, spre deosebire de abordarea pur tehnică a lui Pugh. Față de Sea-level research: a manual for the collection and evaluation of data de O. van de Plassche, care se concentrează pe metodologia colectării datelor, acest volum oferă contextul cultural și politic necesar pentru a înțelege de ce și cum am ales să măsurăm oceanul în acest fel.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780226831831
ISBN-10: 0226831833
Pagini: 200
Ilustrații: 15 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.45 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria Oceans in Depth

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm această carte cercetătorilor și studenților din domeniul istoriei științei și studiilor de mediu. Cititorul va câștiga o înțelegere nuanțată a modului în care o abstractizare matematică a devenit esențială în gestionarea crizei climatice. Este o lectură fundamentală pentru a înțelege că standardele globale nu sunt „naturale”, ci rezultatul unor secole de negocieri tehnologice și politice, oferind o perspectivă critică asupra modului în care percepem schimbările planetare.

Despre autor

Wilko Graf von Hardenberg este un istoric al științei și al mediului, recunoscut pentru abordările sale interdisciplinare care conectează politicile de stat cu transformările ecosistemelor. Lucrarea sa anterioară, A Monastery for the Ibex, a fost finalistă a prestigiosului Turku Book Award în 2023, consolidându-i reputația de cercetător atent la nuanțele politice ale conservării naturii. În prezent, contribuie la dezvoltarea istoriografiei mediului prin analize riguroase asupra modului în care umanitatea încearcă să cuantifice și să controleze forțele naturale, de la fauna alpină până la dinamica oceanelor globale.

Descriere scurtă

Traces a commonplace average—sea level—from its origins in charting land to its emergence as a symbol of global warming.
 
News reports warn of rising sea levels spurred by climate change. Waters inch ever higher, disrupting delicate ecosystems and threatening island and coastal communities. The baseline for these measurements—sea level—may seem unremarkable, a long-familiar zero point for altitude. But as Wilko Graf von Hardenberg reveals, the history of defining and measuring sea level is intertwined with national ambitions, commercial concerns, and shifting relationships between people and the ocean.
 
Sea Level provides a detailed and innovative account of how mean sea level was first defined, how it became the prime reference point for surveying and cartography, and how it emerged as a powerful mark of humanity’s impact on the earth. With Hardenberg as our guide, we traverse the muddy spaces of Venice and Amsterdam, the coasts of the Baltic Sea, the Panama and Suez canals, and the Himalayan foothills. Born out of Enlightenment studies of physics and quantification, sea level became key to state-sponsored public works, colonial expansion, Cold War development of satellite technologies, and recognizing the climate crisis. Mean sea level, Hardenberg reveals, is not a natural occurrence—it has always been contingent, the product of people, places, politics, and evolving technologies. As global warming transforms the globe, Hardenberg reminds us that a holistic understanding of the ocean and its changes requires a multiplicity of reference points.
 
A fascinating story that revises our assumptions about land and ocean alike, Sea Level calls for a more nuanced understanding of this baseline, one that allows for new methods and interpretations as we navigate an era of unstable seas.

Notă biografică

Wilko Graf von Hardenberg is a Berlin-based historian of science and the environment. He currently leads the project The Sound of Nature: Soundscapes and Environmental Awareness, 1750–1950, at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is the author of A Monastery for the Ibex: Conservation, State, and Conflict on the Gran Paradiso, 1919–1949 and the coauthor of Mussolini’s Nature: An Environmental History of Italian Fascism.

Cuprins

Series Editors’ Foreword

Introduction: From Heights to Muds
One: Finding Sea Level
Two: Infrastructures of Measure
Three: Standards of Height
Four: Theories of Change
Five: Going Global
Six: The Rising Tide

Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Recenzii

“Like the metre, the minute, or the meridian that runs through Greenwich, England, ‘sea level’ is best thought of as a social and historical construct, the result of an inherently arbitrary decision taken by generations of people doing their best to make sense of a strange and chaotic world. Von Hardenberg’s history is a story not of the way sea level has changed over time but, rather, of the ways in which humans have understood, and made use of, sea level as a concept, a marker of where we stand in the world.” 

“Sea Level is a powerful reminder that examining the history of scientific values can shed light on both the structure of modern science and its impact on the near future. This book is concise, well written, and informative, and it is a strong example of what ocean history has to offer.”

“Hardenberg’s history illustrates how values of the zero-level reference plane varied from country to country, depending not only on varying geography but also on how national priorities for the allocation of research resources affected the choice and extent of the data sets obtained.” 

“As this readable and thoughtful book explains, making sense of sea level was a matter of measurement. Von Hardenberg traces the ways in which philosophers, map-makers and bureaucrats from the eighteenth century onwards grappled with the problems of measuring elevation.  . . . This is the story of how sea level was transformed from a local to a universal reference.”

“Those whose interests encompass one or more of the Earth sciences, as well as those who study the history of science—particularly its applications and intersections with politics and commerce—should add this new book to their reading list, as should all who would simply like to acquire a better understanding and informed perspective on the terminology, techniques, and overall understanding of one of the more commonly referenced measurement values cited in the present-day discussions and debates about climate change.” 

“Brilliant . . . all adults should read and understand Sea Level. Highly recommended.” 

“Sea level, Hardenberg convincingly demonstrates, is not and never has been a natural or physical plane or index; instead, it is a construct, ‘a product of technically and culturally determined assumptions,’ frequently involving political and imperial motivations. . . . As the engagement with climate change in the final chapters suggests, Sea Level will be of interest to scholars of the environment and of disaster studies, but its tracing of changing scientific ideas definitely deserves attention from historians of science, especially historians of geology and ocean sciences, and of metrology and related technologies, particularly in imperial contexts. The general reader (or student) may want to keep a notebook handy to track the cast of characters, but the book’s readable prose and enlightening connections will make it worth their while to do so.” 

“By combining scientific, historical, and political analyses, Sea Level provides a comprehensive understanding of sea-level rise as both a physical phenomenon and a sociopolitical issue. It challenges readers to think beyond scientific data and to recognize the cultural, historical, and political dimensions of sea-level rise, encouraging a more holistic approach to understanding and addressing the climate crisis.”

“Sea Level is a delightfully compacted study, refreshingly free of the kind of doomsaying that usually accompanies this subject. And the sotto voce warning about hobbling science with the politics of the moment is unfortunately pointed.”

“An astute analysis of the idea of mean sea level that links multiple stories and centuries, from the Enlightenment to the present.”

“Von Hardenberg’s book is a perfect illustration of the complexity of the historical interplay with oceanography providing significant contributions to the evolution of land mapping and ocean charting, the significance of which may not even be known by numerous research scientists.” 

"Historian Wilko Graf von Hardenberg examines how 'sea level' is a baseline that’s often taken as a certainty when it is actually 'far from a natural index – a product of technically and culturally determined assumptions'. From examining how it was produced, he goes on to chart how sea level was then re-imagined as an exemplar of change brought about by anthropogenic warming."

“Traversing major debates within the history of science, Hardenberg offers his readers an interdisciplinary account of the abstraction and mathematization of the global coastlines. He tells this story from a unique vantage point located in the present climate politics. Thoroughly researched, highly original, and robustly argued, this book is a pleasure to read.”