Floating coast : an environmental history of the Bering Strait

Winner of the 2021 AHA John H. Dunning Prize Longlisted for the 2020 Cundill History Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by Nature, NPR, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews "A monument to a people and their land... an allegory of the world we have created." —Sven Beckert, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of Cotton: A Global History Floating Coast is the first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada. The unforgiving territories along the Bering Strait had long been home to humans—the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia—before American and European colonization. Rapidly, these frigid lands and waters became the site of an ongoing experiment: How, under conditions of extreme scarcity, would modern ideologies of capitalism and communism control and manage the resources they craved? Drawing on her own experience living with and interviewing indigenous people in the region, Bathsheba Demuth presents a profound tale of the dynamic changes and unforeseen consequences that human ambition has brought (and will continue to bring) to a finite planet. "A groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world where two great economic ideologies converge. Along the Bering Strait, through the territories of the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia, Bathsheba Demuth explores an ecosystem that has long sustained human beings. Yet when Americans and Europeans arrived with self-serving ideas of human progress, the Chukchi and Seward Peninsulas and surrounding waters became the site of an historical experiment. Here, the great modern ideologies of production and consumption, capitalism and communism, were subject to the pressures of arctic scarcity. Whales and walruses, caribou and fox, gold and oil: through these resources Demuth draws a vivid portrait of the sweeping effects of turning ecological wealth into economic growth and state power over the past century and a half. More urgent in a warming climate, and as we seek new economic ideas for a postindustrial age, Floating Coast delivers necessary warnings and poses provocative questions about human desires and needs in relation to environmental sustainability"-- Provided by publisher A groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world where two great economic ideologies converge. Along the Bering Strait, through the territories of the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia, Bathsheba Demuth explores an ecosystem that has long sustained human beings. Yet when Americans and Europeans arrived with self-serving ideas of human progress, the Chukchi and Seward Peninsulas and surrounding waters became the site of an historical experiment. Here, the great modern ideologies of production and consumption, capitalism and communism, were subject to the pressures of arctic scarcity. Whales and walruses, caribou and fox, gold and oil: through these resources Demuth draws a vivid portrait of the sweeping effects of turning ecological wealth into economic growth and state power over the past century and a half. More urgent in a warming climate, and as we seek new economic ideas for... Epub3 Salu comme un vnement scientifique, prim neuf reprises, ce livre magistral est la toute premire histoire complte d'une tendue de terre et d'eau glaciales situe entre l'Alaska et la Russie, qu'on appelle la Bringie. Cette rgion-frontire est un cosystme complexe compos d'animaux (baleines, renards, corbeaux, loups), d'humains, de ressources naturelles (ptrole, or), d'idologies (capitaliste et communiste) qui interagissent dans des conditions extrmes. Lou pour ses qualits stylistiques et sa composition originale qui couvre la vie humaine et non-humaine en surface comme sous la surface, ce livre nous rappelle que nous ne pouvons pas nous dconnecter du monde : l'nergie que nous siphonnons, les vies que nous prenons, les terres que nous altrons nous faonnent leur tour.