 Many of the books reviewed here can now be purchased over the internet from amazon.co.uk. You can use the link following most of the reviews, or if you are unable to find the book you are after, you can use the search facility at the end of the page. |
In print
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The Gardens of their Dreams: Desertification and Culture in World History
By Brian Griffith
Published by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK
Website: zedbooks.co.uk
2001, 368pp, ISBN 1 85649 800 X (Pb), £16.95/$29.95
For thousands of years a vast desert has been growing in a diagonal swathe of brown across Asia and Africa. Its advance has been mirrored by violent migrations, as desperate and warlike people from the desert lands invaded their more prosperous, settled neighbours in search of a life where the grass is greener. Gardens of their Dreams is the history of these migrations, more particularly the impact on religion, politics, gender and agriculture, of these fearsome migrants and the deserts that drove and followed them.
Desertification is not entirely the fault of human activity. Geological records indicate that the desert areas have experienced previous periods of drought as well as of renewal; it is, in some way, a natural cycle. The difference is that this time there are people present to suffer the drought, and, unfortunately, to accentuate it. Increasing aridity brings with it increasing desperation and violence. Rainfall becomes less reliable; it can as easily fall in someone else's territory as your own, and the old techniques of growing crops with minimum moisture and maximum nurture are simply not enough to guarantee your survival. Soon the capacity to raid and steal from more rain-favoured communities becomes paramount, and the old skills that enabled communities to survive on the desert fringes are abandoned.
According to the author, the cultural impact of desertification has been total. A period of intensifying droughts that occurred around four thousand years ago, coincided with a widespread change in religious thought, known as 'the great reversal'. This reversal was a dramatic move away from the worship of nature, to a system in which the earth was thought of as hostile, a place of sin, exile or delusion. Instead of beauty and beneficence, the world became home only to suffering, and religion became characterised by the pursuit of true happiness in some other time or state.
Not only the relationship between God and man, but the roles and status of men and women were also fundamentally affected. Where once on the desert fringes women were key providers, cultivating gardens and collecting edible plants and fruits, increasing aridity caused their contributions to literally dry up. Survival came to depend on raiding and long distance trading, activities that only men, unencumbered by childcare, could undertake. In agriculture, the dextrous abilities of women in planting, weeding and harvesting were superseded in importance by the physical battle of breaking up hard-baked soil.
Desertification, suggests Griffiths, highlights the best and worst in human history. His book also describes how people have fought against environmental degradation: the farmers of Turfan in China, for example, who are compared to the Dutch, except that instead of reclaiming land from the sea they take it back from the desert. Unfortunately their heroic attempts to rebuild fertile soils in the dust, and to protect their fields with belts of grass and trees, do little to ameliorate the environmental catastrophe facing northern China. Griffiths brings his history of the region right up to date; the disastrous 'modern farming' methods employed under Mao, which turned the arid northern plains into dust bowls, and the virtual exhaustion of water and soils that threatens the area now. His dream is that a future economy could arise which enriches nature as it grows. Only if our ancestors experiences of destroying and healing the earth can be learned from, do we stand any chance of achieving such a dream. 'Gardens of their Dreams' will be a thought-provoking read for all with an interest in cultural history, or in the underlying causes of drought, famine and violence in many parts of the world.
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Dynamics and Diversity: Soil fertility and farming livelihoods in Africa
Edited by Ian Scoones
Published by Earthscan, 120 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JN, UK
Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.uk
Website: www.earthscan.co.uk
2001, 256pp, ISBN 1 85383 820 9 (Pb), £16.95
What is refreshing about this study of soil fertility on African farms is the positive picture it offers of the farmers themselves, and more
particularly their detailed understanding of the land that they farm. Based on case studies from Mali, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, the message of the book
is that local contexts must be taken seriously if agricultural development is to be effective. Soil fertility is a complex matter, not least because
of the diversity of soil types that can be found even on a small farm. Different soils require different fertility inputs, different strategies for
replenishment and enrichment, different crops and different tillage approaches. The socio-economic dynamics that affect how farmers use and improve
the land at their disposal are also complex. Yet sustainable production in more marginal areas will not be possible unless this complexity is
recognised and responded to, whether at the level of extension work or policy making, or somewhere in between. Interesting reading for soil
scientists and agriculturists working in small-holder African farming.
(See also Focus on 01-6)
Enhancing Ownership and Sustainability: A
resource book on participation
