Black Earth(172)

Science in fact possesses At a methodological level, I have opposed forms of historical writing that permit exits into prior emotional convictions or newfound teleological comfort. That said, on the substantial issue of the relationship between technique and experience, I am with the Kantians and against Heidegger. For a close historical examination of a crucial debate: Gordon, Continental Divide, on the issues most pertinent to this study at 15, 17, 31, 35, 217, 220, 225, 238. The rapid conquest: Hitler was formed by but did not partake in the age of the frontier. See Webb, Great Frontier, 280. Even the German victories over the Herero were due in part to the spread of disease in cattle. See Levene, Rise, 247.

When science is disengaged Food prices: Evenson, “Economic Consequences,” 473. See also Federico, “Natura Non Fecit Saltus,” 24. For a history of these improvements, see Olmstead and Rhode, Creating Abundance, especially 64–66 and 388–98.

At precisely this point Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 594. Cf. Maier, Unmasterable Past, 7: “For almost four decades the Federal Republic has lived, so to speak, by bread alone.” Also Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction, 167: “Studying the Holocaust is the best means to prevent its mystification.” On the special 1950s: Federico, “Natura Non Fecit Saltus,” 21. Consider the word “calorie,” which in the West almost always means something of which people get too much. In the 1930s, people and planners counted calories to ensure that a household had enough of them to survive, or that laboring men, women, and animals received enough of them to power the economy.

The Green Revolution China net importer: Aliyu, “Agricultural Development.” Few months’ supply: Denison, Darwinian Agriculture, 11. Food riots: Moyo, Winner Take All, 109.

Though the world is not Of course, simple deprivation of food is bad enough; in the world of today, a child starves to death every five seconds. Ziegler, Betting on Famine, xiii.

It seems reasonable to worry Cf. Gumbrecht, Nach 1945, 245, 264, 305. See also Rousso, La dernière catastrophe; Berger, After the End.

The planet is changing Internal combustion engines and factories produce gases that trap the sun’s heat within the atmosphere. The ongoing destruction of forests and wetlands accelerates this warming, since plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. A mass of global data demonstrates an increase in annual minimum temperatures of the surface of the earth, of the air at the surface of the earth, of the higher atmosphere, and of the surface of the oceans. Causality: Maslin, Global Warming, 1, 4, 57. Temperatures and causality: Alexander, “Global Observed Changes,” 31; Rohde, “A New Estimate,” 22; Rohde, “Averaging Process,” 1; Zhang, “Detection of Human Influence,” 461. Predictions too modest: Rahmsdorf, “Comparing Climate Projections,” 1; Economist, 22 September 2012; Guardian, 27 November 2012. Nonlinear effects: Maslin, Global Warming, 112, 116; Mitchell, “Extreme Events,” 2217; Latif, “El Ni?o,” 20853. The basic point about regionalism in Pitman, Arneth, and Ganzeveld, “Regionalizing,” 332. Species: Maslin, Global Warming, 99; also Clarke, “From Genes to Ecosystems,” 6. Coastlines: Cayan, “Climate Change Projections,” S71; Helmuth, “Hidden Signals,” 191; Rahmsdorf, “Comparing Climate Projections,” 1. Storms: Tebaldi, “Modelling Sea Level Rise,” 1. For an extremely impressive history of climate change in an earlier period, see Parker, Global Crisis.

Perhaps the experience Cf. Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 477, 544, 549. As Mount points out, realist theories of international politics will have to account for the real changes on our real planet: “Arctic Wake-up Call,” 10.

Hitler was a child First globalization: Trentmann: “Coping with Shortage,” 15, 22, and passim; Federico, “Natura Non Fecit Saltus,” 23. Most affected: Brown and Crawford, “Climate Change,” 2. Useful in the future will be Kiernan’s reminder that all historical episodes of mass killing are connected in one way or another to an account of the value of land. Blood and Soil, especially chap. 4.

Mass killing in Rwanda The exhaustion of: New York Times, 14 December 1989. 1993: Campbell, “Population Pressure,” 2. Overpopulation and land motivation: Newbury, “Background,” 13. Land motivation: Rose, “Land and Genocide,” 64. Organization: Stanton, “Could the Rwandan,” 211–15; Hintjens, “Explaining,” 249, 261, 270. Organization and numbers: Straus, “How Many Perpetrators,” 86–87. Loyalty to group: Sémelin, Purifier, 314.

The starvation in Somalia Moyo, Winner Take All, 32–33; Economist, 21 May 2009; Brautigam, “Land Rights”; Horta, “Zambezi Valley.” 60 percent of world’s untilled arable land: Economist, 4 September 2013. Madagascar: Ziegler, Betting on Famine, 200.