Review

Reviewed Work(s): South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons by

Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edgecombe and Bill Guest
Review by: Belinda Dodson
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2004), pp.
185-187
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129104
Accessed: 09-08-2019 15:08 UTC

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 BOOK REVIEWS 185

subjects that stretches over many centuries. Individual Batwa comm

especially individuals themselves, rarely hold the limelight for
warns readers in advance that her intent is not to provide social or
tive histories, but at times this reader longed for more ethnograp
accounts appear of Batwa interacting with Europeans or Africans i
teenth century. Besides these minor quibbles, this book will gi
deserved stature to the importance of oft-neglected Batwa.

JEREMY RICH

Cabrini College

South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Compariso

Edited by Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edgecombe, and Bill Guest. Athe
Ohio University Press, 2003, and Cape Town: David Philip, 2002. Pp
326. $24.95 paper.

This book has its origins in a 1996 meeting of environmental historians at t

University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. Whether intentionally or otherwise,
collection serves as a festschrift to the late Ruth Edgecombe, one of the pr
movers behind both that meeting and this subsequent volume. Ruth died of c
in 2001. Her death robbed South African environmental history of one of its
neers and leaders at a time when she was still brimming with ideas and ent
asm in a field still very much in need of champions. The book also serves as
gauge of both the promise and fragility of the scholarly environmental his
enterprise in South Africa, surely one of the most exciting physical and so
contexts in which to do environmental history research. The environm
impact of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid; the role of an often diff
natural environment in shaping the country's social, economic, and politica
tory; the manifestation of social and political conflict in struggles over resou
and territory-these are rich fields for environmental historians to plough.

The book makes no claims to be comprehensive, and instead comprise

ultimately frustrating combination of detailed local case studies and broad-
overviews and comparisons. Geographically, there is something of a Kw
Natal bias, likely a reflection of Ruth's own professional base and her signi
influence on the field of environmental history as practiced by both profess

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186 BOOK REVIEWS

and amateur historians. This bias gives the book a particularism

ism, that makes it perhaps less attractive to a general and espe
African readership. This is countered somewhat by the inclusion
national scholars in environmental history such as Nancy Jaco
although neither the international comparisons nor the applica
African case of theories formulated in other sociohistorical cont
true. The strongest chapters are those by Sean Archer on wind
the Karoo, Lance van Sittert on the invasion of prickly pear in
and William Beinart locating South African environmental histo
context. Beinart's commentary on South African environm
whole applies equally to this book: Where are the studies of
environmental knowledge and practices? Where is the detailed
standing of actual natural environments and environmental chan
more nuanced understanding of both colonialism and the state
where is the evidence of true interdisciplinarity, with historia
ously with environmental science and environmental scientists
ideas of the natural environment as socially constructed and con

The book is nevertheless a worthwhile and rewarding r

interested in environmental history, and not only that of South
mental historians, especially those in other settler colonies suc
Australia, will find it a source of ideas to explore comparat
settings. Academics in other disciplines, such as historical geog
mental history's intellectual rival sibling?) might be motivated
ties for collaboration and interdisciplinary cross-pollinatio
scientists and managers might find the book challenging and un
gain much from reading it. Graduate students beginning to exp
of doing environmental history research would find it inspiring
examples of good environmental history scholarship and in po
existing knowledge and directions for future research. The bo
vide a good basis for a senior undergraduate or graduate cours
or comparative environmental history.

An optimistic outlook for South African environmental hi

this volume as a useful first step; a sketchily drawn explorer's m
dragons" and "unknown territory" left for the attention of fut
small number of environmental historians of and in South Af
challenge indeed, but one whose progress will almost certainly
ing. The other part of the challenge is for its practitioners to
African history, environmental or otherwise, as either someth
tional or alternately simply a minor variation on universal th

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 BOOK REVIEWS 187

scholarly interaction, and more meetings such as the one in

South African environmental history to flourish as it should,
hope that a successor to Ruth Edgecombe will emerge to lead the

BELINDA DODSON

University of Western Ontario

Reproduction and Social Context in Sub-Saharan Africa:

tion of Micro-Demographic Studies. Edited by Samuel
Mensah and John B. Casterline. Contributions in Afro-American and
African Studies, Number 206. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003.
Pp. vii, 206. $64.95.

As its title implies, this collection is wide-ranging in scope, its chapters so diverse
in geographic location, topic, and study design that at first glance the fact that
they are grouped in the (wide) category of microdemographic research seems to
be their only commonality. This multidisciplinary approach has the potential
advantage of attracting a wide readership from academic and policy realms.
Demographers, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, economists, family
planning planners, and reproductive health workers interested in fertility change
in Africa will all find theoretical, methodological, and programmatic aspects of
interest. Perhaps inevitably, this diversity makes some of the chapters less acces-
sible to those outside the specific field of their authors. Without the final, summa-
rizing chapter this book would be more useful for its parts than taken whole, but
framing the preceding chapters in terms of the fertility transition, John and Pat
Caldwell succeed in bringing together the disparate studies.

The diversity is intentional, and serves the editors' two main objectives.
First, the methodological and disciplinary mix serves to re-orient microde-
mographic research away from solely qualitative approaches, "blending both
numerical and non-numerical data" (p. 2). Second, by soliciting these original
works, the editors demonstrate the use of microdemographic studies across sub-
regions of the continent (except Central Africa) and across populations at differ-
ent stages in fertility transition. In a sense, the editors have issued a challenge to
their readers-to devise locally relevant and robust research designs at the

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