Saturday, April 01, 2006

Neal Ascherson in the LRB

There is a tremendous piece by Neal Ascherson in the current London Review of Books.

It is a review of The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany by David Blackbourn. But it is far more than that too. It takes in a discussion of what "conservation" can mean in a world where the landscape has been shaped and reshaped by human activity. And it also looks at the nature of Nazism, with its strange combination of forward-looking and backward-looking elements.

I have posted a short extract from this article on my anthology blog Serendib, but the whole thing is highly recommended.

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