While researching Russia's historical efforts to protect nature, Douglas Weiner unearthed unexpected findings: a trail of documents that raised fundamental questions about the Soviet political system. These surprising documents attested to the unlikely survival of a critical-minded, scientist-led movement through the Stalin years and beyond. It appeared that, within scientific societies, alternative visions of land use, resrouce exploitation, habitat protection, and development were sustained and even publicly advocated. In sharp contrast to known Soviet practices, these scientific societies prided themselves on their traditions of free elections, foreign contacts, and a pre-revolutionary heritage. Weiner portrays nature protection activists not as do-or-die resisters to the system, nor as inoffensive do-gooders. Rather, they took advantage of an unpoliced realm of speech and activity and of the patronage by middle-level Soviet officials to struggle for a softer path to development. In the process, they defended independent social and professional identities in the face of a system that sought to impose official models of behavior, ethics, and identity for all. Written in a lively style, this absorbing story tells for the first time how organized participation in nature protection provided an arena for affirming and perpetuating self-generated social identities in the USSR and preserving a counterculture whose legacy survives today.

About the Author
Douglas R. Weiner is Professor of History at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia (1988; paperback edition, 2000)

Reviews
"Weiner's divination and analysis of the archival materials of not only academic institutions and conservation organizations but also of the Communist Party and governments of Russia and the Soviet Union is extensive. His material brings to light activists affirming divergent opinions and fighting for personal and professional interests within the Soviet system, even during the Stalin era." - D.J. Peterson, Environmental History "A provocative study." - Paul R. Josephson, American Historical Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780520232136
Author Douglas R. Weiner
Format Paperback
Page Count 570
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 43mm