Capitalism as World-Ecology: Braudel and Marx on Environmental History’. Organization and Environment

This essay considers the relevance of Fernand Braudel’s world-historical studies for the theory and practice of environmental history. Arguing against the conventional view that Braudel regarded the environment as a backdrop, the essay points to his sophisticated layer-ing of time, space, and nature in which society and ecology actively shape each other. Braudel’s greatest historical-geographical insight is the idea that world-economies are not simply social constructions but also ecological projects. In this fashion, Braudel implicitly suggests the concept “world-ecology. ” Although never spelled out in precisely these terms, the idea that ecogeographical processes permeate the ever-shifting relations of region, state, and world-economy runs like red thread through Braudel’s corpus. Braudel under-stood nature in terms of transitory but identifiable socio-ecological moments that shape and are shaped by a world-ecological whole. Unfortunately, Braudel’s underconceptualized approach prevented him from identifyingwith greater specificity capitalism’sworld-ecolog-ical contradictions. To build effectively uponBraudel’s ecohistorical insights, wemight turn to Marx and Engels ’ ecological critique of capitalism