FREDERICK the Great of Prussia (1712-1786) regarded marshland reclamations as 鈥渃onquests from barbarism鈥�. Over 250 years, the German leaders have taken this notion to heart, straightening rivers, draining fens and marshes and building high dams and hydroelectric schemes, sometimes at tremendous cost to the environment and human life. The wild Rhine has been transformed into an inland waterway, but no longer deposits gold in sand and gravel banks. The Nazis twisted Frederick鈥檚 success in reclamation into a perverted belief in the inferiority of 鈥渕arsh-dwelling Slavs鈥�, thereby justifying Poland鈥檚 occupiers in their barbarous programme of population transfer, racial engineering and murder. This book offers a fresh insight into this passage of German history and will interest engineers, ecologists, economists, politicians and historians alike.
The Conquest of Nature: Water and the making of the modern German landscape
Jonathan Cape
