Audio (MP3) (radio interview) Not available 9Mb

The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman reviews the idea that decline is inevitable, that in the deep past there was a Golden Age when the world was perfect and it’s all about to end. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Stephen Pinker tells the story of the centuries long, relentless decline in violence throughout human history brought about by the emergence of the state, to which citizens agreed to ‘surrender the satisfactions of vengeance for impartial law’ and 'gentle commerce', the mutual benefits of trade.Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama puts the case that landscape is a form of human expression in the same way that poetry, prose and painting are forms of expression. As humans have shaped landscapes to suit our needs they become part of our cultural memory. In Wendell Berry’s words the European new arrivals in North America ‘…came with visions of former places and not the sight to see where they were. They did not know what they were doing because they did not know what they were undoing.’ So too it took 200 years before Bill Gammage could write The Biggest Estate on Earthabout Aboriginal fire shaping this continent and Bruce Pascoe could write Dark Emu about Aboriginal agriculture.

Item Type:	Media Interview
Research Division:	Environmental Sciences
Research Group:	Environmental management
Research Field:	Environmental management
Objective Division:	Environmental Policy, Climate Change and Natural Hazards
Objective Group:	Environmental policy, legislation and standards
Objective Field:	Sustainability indicators
UTAS Author:	Lefroy, EC (Professor Ted Lefroy)
ID Code:	114991
Year Published:	2016
Deposited By:	Centre for Environment
Deposited On:	2017-03-03
Last Modified:	2017-03-03
Downloads:	0