- Email: [email protected]
A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations, Barbara K. Rodes and Rice Odell, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1998, 333 pp.
Landscape and Urban Planning 46 (2000) 253±256
Book reviews A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations, Barbara K. Rodes and Rice Odell, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1998, 333 pp. Barbara Rodes and Rice Odell have put together an interesting collection of thoughts, pronouncements, commentaries, faux pas and quips about various aspects of the environment and human interaction with it. The sources are varied and the orientation of the quotations is relatively balanced. The quotations are alphabetically arranged in 143 categories and presented in these categories in chronological order. As anyone picking up this volume would do, I found myself seeking out individuals and quotations with which I was familiar. I was not disappointed in the result, but as anyone involved in the environmental movement would realize this is not, nor was it intended to be, a comprehensive assessment. Nonetheless, the work does capture many of the controversies surrounding a number of recognizable terms dealing with the environment. The compilers make note of the fact that their chronological presentation `serv(es) as a chronicle of environmental thought across the ages.' This is a very overstated claim. Viewed in light of more scholarly works such as Clarence Glacken's Traces on a Rhodian Shore (Glacken, 1967) or Peter Bowler's History of the Environmental Sciences (Bowler, 1993) there is no comparison. Rodes and Odell have produced a personal snapshot (albeit an interesting one) of a select group of environmental topics and quotations associated with them which does capture much of the essence of what has transpired in some areas of the environmental movement. It is not a scholarly review of environmental thought across the millennia. 0169-2046/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
This rather dubious claim aside, there are three other elements of this volume that some may ®nd wanting. First, there is no presentation of why the categories were selected. Comparing the topics covered in this volume to those in the recently released Encyclopedia of Environmental Science (Alexander and Rhodes, 1999), there are a number of differences. To be sure, these works are intended for difference purposes, but some presentation of why these topics were selected would have been useful. Second, this work does not meet my de®nition of a `dictionary.' While there are topics arranged alphabetically there is not effort to provide a speci®c meaning to these topics. Indeed, for most the interest is the exact opposite, i.e., eliciting differences and divergence's in meaning and perspective. Finally, this volume provides on limited information on the source of the citations. While the information provided is likely to be an adequate departure point for those interested in the complete source any quotation, it will take an inordinate amount of effort to do. This inability to provide complete and comprehensive attribution is the work's most serious de®ciency. References Alexander, D.E., Rhodes, W.F. (Eds.), 1999. The Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands Bowler, P., 1993. History of the Environmental Sciences. Norton, New York Glacken, C., 1967. Traces on a Rhodian Shore. University of California Press, Berkeley
W.W. Budd Program in Environmental Science and Regional Planning, Washington State University, Pullman, WA USA PII: S 0 1 6 9 - 2 0 4 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 2 - 6
Book reviews A Dictionary of Environmental Quotations, Barbara K. Rodes and Rice Odell, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1998, 333 pp. Barbara Rodes and Rice Odell have put together an interesting collection of thoughts, pronouncements, commentaries, faux pas and quips about various aspects of the environment and human interaction with it. The sources are varied and the orientation of the quotations is relatively balanced. The quotations are alphabetically arranged in 143 categories and presented in these categories in chronological order. As anyone picking up this volume would do, I found myself seeking out individuals and quotations with which I was familiar. I was not disappointed in the result, but as anyone involved in the environmental movement would realize this is not, nor was it intended to be, a comprehensive assessment. Nonetheless, the work does capture many of the controversies surrounding a number of recognizable terms dealing with the environment. The compilers make note of the fact that their chronological presentation `serv(es) as a chronicle of environmental thought across the ages.' This is a very overstated claim. Viewed in light of more scholarly works such as Clarence Glacken's Traces on a Rhodian Shore (Glacken, 1967) or Peter Bowler's History of the Environmental Sciences (Bowler, 1993) there is no comparison. Rodes and Odell have produced a personal snapshot (albeit an interesting one) of a select group of environmental topics and quotations associated with them which does capture much of the essence of what has transpired in some areas of the environmental movement. It is not a scholarly review of environmental thought across the millennia. 0169-2046/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
This rather dubious claim aside, there are three other elements of this volume that some may ®nd wanting. First, there is no presentation of why the categories were selected. Comparing the topics covered in this volume to those in the recently released Encyclopedia of Environmental Science (Alexander and Rhodes, 1999), there are a number of differences. To be sure, these works are intended for difference purposes, but some presentation of why these topics were selected would have been useful. Second, this work does not meet my de®nition of a `dictionary.' While there are topics arranged alphabetically there is not effort to provide a speci®c meaning to these topics. Indeed, for most the interest is the exact opposite, i.e., eliciting differences and divergence's in meaning and perspective. Finally, this volume provides on limited information on the source of the citations. While the information provided is likely to be an adequate departure point for those interested in the complete source any quotation, it will take an inordinate amount of effort to do. This inability to provide complete and comprehensive attribution is the work's most serious de®ciency. References Alexander, D.E., Rhodes, W.F. (Eds.), 1999. The Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands Bowler, P., 1993. History of the Environmental Sciences. Norton, New York Glacken, C., 1967. Traces on a Rhodian Shore. University of California Press, Berkeley
W.W. Budd Program in Environmental Science and Regional Planning, Washington State University, Pullman, WA USA PII: S 0 1 6 9 - 2 0 4 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 6 2 - 6