Description:
Winner of the 2019 Turku Book Award from the European Society for Environmental History
The Albufera Natural Park, an area ten kilometers south of Valencia that is widely regarded as the birthplace of paella, has long been prized by residents and visitors alike. Since the twentieth century, the disparate visions of city dwellers, farmers, fishermen, scientists, politicians, and tourists have made this working landscape a site of ongoing conflict over environmental conservation in Europe, the future of Spain, and Valencian identity.
In Cultivating Nature, Sarah Hamilton explores the Albufera's contested lands and waters, which have supported and been transformed by human activity for a millennium, in order to understand regional, national, and global social histories. She argues that efforts to preserve biological and cultural diversity must incorporate the interests of those who live within heavily modified and long-exploited ecosystems such as the Albufera de Valencia. Shifting between local struggles and global debates, this fascinating environmental history reveals how Franco's dictatorship, Spain's integration with Europe, and the crisis in European agriculture have shaped the Albufera, its users, and its inhabitants.
Brief description: Paul Sutter is series editor for the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books series. He is professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has published five books, including Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies: Providence Canyon and the Soils of the South (Georgia, 2015) and Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement (Washington, 2005).
Review Quotes:
"Hamilton captures the inherent complexity of environmental issues very well."
-- "Technology and Culture"