Editing Environmental determinism (section)

== A history of thought ==

=== Classical and medieval periods ===
Early theories of environmental determinism in [[Ancient China]], [[Ancient Greece]], and [[Ancient Rome]] suggested that environmental features completely determined the physical and intellectual qualities of whole societies. [[Guan Zhong]] (720–645 BC), an [[Spring and Autumn period|early]] chancellor in China, held that the qualities of major rivers shaped the character of surrounding peoples. Swift and twisting rivers made people "greedy, uncouth, and warlike".<ref>{{cite book | last=Guan | first=Zhong | translator-last=Rickett | translator-first=W. Allyn | date=1998 | orig-year=1985 | title=Guanzi: Political, economic, and philosophical essays from early China | volume=2 | publisher=Princeton University Press | isbn=978-0-691-04816-1 | oclc=41348134 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-LAPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA106 | page=106}}</ref> The ancient Greek philosopher [[Hippocrates]] wrote a similar account in his treatise "Airs, Waters, Places".<ref>{{cite book | last=Isaac | first=Benjamin H. | title=The invention of racism in classical antiquity | publication-place=Princeton, New Jersey | publisher=Princeton University Press | date=2004 | isbn=978-0-691-11691-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_WOYDwAAQBAJ}}</ref>

In this text, Hippocrates explained how the ethnicities of people were connected to their environment. He argued that there existed a connection between the geography surrounding people and their ethnicity. Hippocrates described the effects of different climates, customs, and diets on people and how this affected their behaviors, attitudes, as well as their susceptibility to diseases and illnesses.

For example, he explains the Asian race were less warlike compared to other civilizations due to their climate. He attributes this to the fact that there are “no great shifts in the weather, which is neither hot nor cold but temperate”<ref name="Hippocrates 1849 part 16">{{cite book | title=[[s:On Airs, Waters, and Places|On airs, waters, and places]] | author=Hippocrates | date=1849 | orig-year={{circa|{{BCE|425}}}} | translator-first=Francis | translator-last=Adams | at=Part 16}}</ref> and how the climate conditions allow Asians to live without shock or mental anxieties. According to Hippocrates, anxieties and shocks promote passion and recklessness in humans, but since Asians lack this, they remain feeble. This connects to the manner in which Asians are ruled, stating they do not “rule themselves nor are autonomous but subjects to a despot, there is no self-interest in appearing warlike.”<ref name="Hippocrates 1849 part 16" /> In the later chapters of his work, he contrasts this attitude to that of Europeans. He claims that laziness can be attributed as an effect of uniform climate and that “Endurance of both the body and soul comes from change. Also cowardice increases softness and laziness, while courage engenders endurance and a work ethic.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 23}} Since Europeans experience more fluctuations in their climate, they do not remain accustomed to their climate and are forced to endure constant change. Hippocrates claims that this is reflected in a person's character and ties that to the character of Europeans, explaining that “For this reason, those dwelling in Europe are more effective fighters.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 23}}

According to Hippocrates, there are also physical manifestations of environmental determinism in people. He presents the connection between the nature of the land and its people, arguing that the physique and nature of a man are formed and influenced by it. He explains one of the ways this connection is exhibited by stating, “Where the land is rich, soft, and well watered, and the waters are near the surface so that they become hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and where the climate is nice, there the men are flabby and jointless, bloated and lazy and mostly cowards.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 23}} He notes the nomadic Scythians as examples of a civilization that possesses these traits. In a previous section of his text, he notes how the Scythians are flabby and bloated and that they possess the most bloated bellies of all peoples. He also comments that all males are identical and all females are identical in appearance, males with males and females with females. He attributes this to the climate conditions they live in and the fact that they experience identical summer and winter seasons. The lack of change leads them to wear the same clothes, eat the same fare, breathe the same damp air, and refrain from labor. This continuity and the lack of strong shifts in climate is what Hippocrates identifies as the cause for their appearance. Since the Scythians are not accustomed to experiencing sudden changes, they cannot develop the body or soul to endure physical activity.  In comparison, locations “where the land is barren, dry, harsh, and harried by storms in the winter or scorched by the sun in the summers, there one would find strong, lean, well-defined. muscular, and hairy men.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 24}} These characteristics would also reflect on their character, as they would possess hard-working, intelligent, and independent natures as well as being more skilled and warlike than others.

Hippocrates also argues that the physical appearance caused by people's environments affect the reproduction and fertility of civilizations, which affects future generations. He presents the appearance and bodies of the Scythians as having a negative impact on the fertility of their civilization. Hippocrates argues that due to their bloated stomachs and “extremely soft and cold lower bellies”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 21}} Scythian men are not eager for intercourse and due to this condition, “highly unlikely to be able to satisfy his lusts.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 21}} He further argues that the behavior of the Scythian men and their horseback riding customs also affected their fertility because the “constant bouncing on horseback has rendered Scythian men unfit for sex”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 21}} and made them infertile. Women, according to Hippocrates are also infertile because of their physical condition and because they are fat and bloated. Hippocrates claims that due to their physique, women have wombs that are too wet and “incapable of absorbing a man's seed.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 21}} This he explains, affects their fertility and their reproduction as well as causes other problems in the function of their reproductive system, for example “their monthly purge is also not as it should be, but is infrequent as scanty.”{{sfn|Hippocrates|1849|at=Part 21}} Due to their fat, their wombs are clogged which blocks male seed. All of these conditions and traits are evidence that supports his claim that the Scythian race is infertile and acts as an example of how the concept of environmental determinism manifests.

Writers in the medieval [[Middle East]] also produced theories of environmental determinism. The [[Afro-Arab]] writer [[al-Jahiz]] argued that the [[skin color]] of people and livestock were determined by the water, soil, and heat of their environments. He compared the color of black [[basalt]] in the northern [[Najd]] to the skin color of the peoples living there to support his theory.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Conrad | first1=Lawrence I. | year=1982 | title=Taun and Waba: Conceptions of Plague and Pestilence in Early Islam | journal=Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient | volume=25 | issue=3 | pages=268–307 [278] | doi=10.2307/3632188 | jstor=3632188}}</ref>

[[Ibn Khaldun]], the [[Sociology in medieval Islam|Arab sociologist]] and [[polymath]], similarly linked skin color to environmental factors. In his ''[[Muqaddimah]]'' (1377), he wrote that black skin was due to the hot climate of [[sub-Saharan Africa]] and not due to African lineage. He thereby challenged [[Hamitic]] theories of race that held that the sons of [[Ham (son of Noah)]] were cursed with black skin.<ref>{{cite journal | title='Race', slavery and Islam in Maghribi Mediterranean thought: The question of the Haratin in Morocco | first=Chouki | last=El Hamel | journal=The Journal of North African Studies | volume=7 | issue=3 | year=2002 | pages=29–52 [39–42] | doi=10.1080/13629380208718472 | s2cid=219625829}}</ref> Many writings of Ibn Khaldun were translated during the colonial era in order to advance the colonial propaganda machine.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Hannoum | first=Abdelmajid | date=February 2003 | title=Translation and the colonial imaginary: Ibn Khaldûn orientalist | work=[[History and Theory]] | volume=42 | number=1 | pages=61–81 | issn=0018-2656 | publisher=[[Wesleyan University]] | jstor=3590803}}</ref>

Ibn Khaldun believed that the physical environment influenced non-physical factors in addition to skin color. He argued that soil, climate, and food determined whether people were [[nomad]]ic or [[sedentism|sedentary]], and what customs and ceremonies they held. His writings may have influenced the later writings of [[Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu|Montesquieu]] during the 18th century through the traveller [[Jean Chardin]], who travelled to Persia and described theories resembling those of Ibn Khaldun.<ref>{{cite journal | title=The spread of Ibn Khaldun's ideas on climate and culture | first=Warren E. | last=Gates | journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] | volume=28 | issue=3 | date=July 1967 | pages=415–422 | jstor=2708627 | doi=10.2307/2708627}}</ref>

=== Western colonial period ===
{{Main|Analysis of Western European colonialism and colonization}}
Environmental determinism has been widely criticized as a tool to legitimize [[colonialism]], [[racism]], and [[imperialism]] in [[Africa]], [[The Americas]], and [[Asia]].<ref name="Gilmartin 2009" /> Environmental determinism enabled geographers to scientifically justify the supremacy of white European races and the naturalness of imperialism.<ref name="Painter 2009, pg.177">{{cite book | last=Painter | first=Joe | last2=Jeffrey | first2=Alex | date=2009-02-18 | title=Political geography: An introduction to space and power | publisher=Sage | isbn=978-1-4129-0137-6 | oclc=248987556 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRVjGJGmAPMC&pg=PA177 | page=177}}</ref> The scholarship bolstered religious justifications and in some cases superseded them during the late 19th century.<ref name="J.A. Campbell 1983">{{cite journal |last=Campbell |first=J. A. |last2=Livingstone |first2=David Noel |author-link2=David N. Livingstone |date=1983 |title=Neo-Lamarckism and the development of geography in the United States and Great Britain |journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers |volume=8 |issue=3 |page=267-294, at p. 278 |doi=10.2307/622045 |jstor=622045}}</ref>

Many writers, including [[Thomas Jefferson]], supported and legitimized African colonization by arguing that tropical climates made the people uncivilized. Jefferson argued that tropical climates encouraged laziness, relaxed attitudes, promiscuity and generally degenerative societies, while the frequent variability in the weather of the middle and northern latitudes led to stronger work ethics and civilized societies.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Jefferson | first1=Thomas | editor1-last=Gates | editor1-first=Henry Louis | editor2-last=Burton | editor2-first=Jennifer | title=Call and response: Key debates in African American studies | date=2011 | publisher=W.W. Norton & Company | location=New York | isbn=978-0-393-97578-9 | pages=17–24 | chapter=Notes on the State of Virginia}}</ref> [[Adolf Hitler]] also made use of this theory to extol the supremacy of the [[Nordic race]].<ref>{{cite speech | url=http://carolynyeager.net/why-we-are-antisemites-text-adolf-hitlers-1920-speech-hofbr%C3%A4uhaus | title=Warum sind wir Antisemiten? | trans-title=Why we are antisemites | language=en | event=National Socialist German Workers Party meeting at the State Brewery in Munich, 15 August 1920 | first=Adolf | last=Hitler | orig-year=1920 | editor-first=Carolyn Elizabeth | editor-last=Yeager | date=29 January 2013 | translator-first=Hasso | translator-last=Castrup | publication-place=Texas | publisher=Carolyn Elizabeth Yeager | access-date=27 November 2016}} Translated from {{cite journal | last=Phelps | first=Reginald H. | date=October 1968 | title=Hitlers „grundlegende" rede über den antisemitismus | trans-title=Hitler's "fundamental" speech on anti-Semitism | language=de | journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |volume=16 | number=4 | jstor=30196275 | url=https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1968_4.pdf#page=86 | pages=390-420, at 400-418}}</ref>

Defects of character supposedly generated by tropical climates were believed to be inheritable under the [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarckian]] theory of [[inheritance of acquired characteristics]], a discredited precursor to the [[Charles Darwin|Darwinian]] theory of [[natural selection]].<ref name="J.A. Campbell 1983" /> The theory begins with the observation that an organism faced with environmental pressures may undergo physiological changes during its lifetime through the process of [[acclimatization]]. Lamarckianism suggested that those physiological changes may be passed directly to offspring, without the need for offspring to develop the trait in the same manner.<ref>{{citation | mode=cs1 | last=Lamarck | first=Jean-Baptiste | date=1809 | title=Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considérations relatives à l'histoire naturelle des animaux | trans-title=Zoological philosophy: Exposition with regard to the natural history of animals | language=fr | publication-place=Paris | publisher=National Museum of Natural History | pp=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8NsTAAAAQAAJ/page/n297 235], [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8NsTAAAAQAAJ/page/n296 261] | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8NsTAAAAQAAJ/page/n296}} Translated in {{cite journal | last=Mayr | first=Ernst | title=Lamarck revisited | journal=Journal of the History of Biology | volume=5 | issue=1 | date=1972 | issn=0022-5010 | doi=10.1007/BF02113486 | jstor=4330569 | pages=55–94, at pp. 79–80}} Note: The page numbers Mayr cites don't match either the 1809 edition, or Jean-Baptiste Baillière's 1830 reprint.</ref>

Geographical societies like the [[Royal Geographical Society]] and the [[Société de géographie]] supported imperialism by funding explorers and other colonial proponents.{{sfn|Gilmartin|2009|p=117}} Scientific societies acted similarly. [[Acclimatisation society|Acclimatization societies]] directly supported colonial enterprises and enjoyed their benefits. The writings of Lamarck provided theoretical backing for the acclimatization doctrines. The Société Zoologique d'Acclimatation was largely founded by [[Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]]—son of [[Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]], a close colleague and supporter of Lamarck.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Osborne | first=Michael A. | title=Acclimatizing the world: A history of the paradigmatic colonial science | journal=Osiris | volume=15 | date=2000 | issn=0369-7827 | doi=10.1086/649323 | jstor=301945 | pages=135–151, at pp. 138, 143}}</ref>

[[Ellen Churchill Semple]], a prominent environmental determinism scholar, applied her theories in a case study which focused on the [[Philippines]], where she mapped civilization and wildness onto the [[topography]] of the islands.<ref name="Painter 2009, pg.177" /> Other scholars argued that climate and topography caused specific character traits to appear in a given populations. Scholars thereby imposed racial stereotypes on whole societies.<ref name="Painter 2009, pg.177" /> Imperial powers rationalized [[Exploitation of labour|labor exploitation]] by claiming that tropical peoples were morally inferior.<ref>{{cite book | last=Gallaher | first=Carolyn | date=2009 | chapter=Political economy | editor-last=Gallaher | editor-first=Carolyn | editor-last2=Dahlman | editor-first2=Carl T. | editor-last3=Gilmartin | editor-first3=Mary | editor-last4=Mountz | editor-first4=Alison | editor-last5=Shirlow | editor-first5=Peter | title=Key concepts in political geography | publisher=Sage | isbn=978-1-4129-4671-1 | oclc=192080009 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XpBJclVnVdQC&pg=PT138 | pages=124–135, at p. 127}}</ref>

The role of environmental determinism in rationalizing and legitimizing [[racism]], [[ethnocentrism]] and [[economic inequality]] has consequently drawn strong criticism.{{sfn|Painter|Jeffrey|2009|p=200}}

[[David Landes]] similarly condemns of what he terms the unscientific moral geography of [[Ellsworth Huntington]]. He argues that Huntington undermined geography as a science by attributing all human activity to physical influences so that he might classify civilizations hierarchically – favoring those civilizations he considered best.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Landes | first1=David | title=The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor | isbn=978-0-393-04017-3 | year=1998 | publisher=W.W. Norton | url=https://archive.org/details/wealthpovertyofn00land}}</ref>

=== Late-20th-century growth of neo-environmental determinism ===
Environmental determinism was revived in the late-twentieth century as neo-environmental determinism, a new term coined by the [[social science|social scientist]] and critic [[Andrew Sluyter]].<ref name="Sluyter 2003" /> Sluyter argues that neo-environmental determinism does not sufficiently break with its classical and imperial precursors.<ref name="Sluyter 2003" /> Others have argued that in a certain sense a [[Universal Darwinism|Darwinian]] approach to determinism is useful in shedding light on human nature.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Ruse | first=Michael | date=1987 | title=Darwinism and determinism | journal=Zygon | language=en | volume=22 | issue=4 | pages=419–442 | doi=10.1111/j.1467-9744.1987.tb00781.x | issn=1467-9744}}</ref>

Neo-environmental determinism examines how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular trajectories of economic and political development. It explores how geographic and ecological forces influence [[state-building]], [[economic development]], and [[institutions]]. It also addresses fears surrounding the [[effects of global warming|effects of modern climate change]].<ref name="Matthews 2012">{{cite book | editor-last=Matthews | editor-first=John A. | editor-last2=Bartlein | editor-first2=Patrick J. | editor-last3=Briffa | editor-first3=Keith R. | editor-last4=Dawson | editor-first4=Alastair G. | editor-last5=De Vernal | editor-first5=Anne | editor-last6=Denham | editor-first6=Tim | editor-last7=Fritz | editor-first7=Sherilyn C. | editor-last8=Oldfied | editor-first8=Frank | date=2012-02-22 | title=The SAGE handbook of environmental change | volume=1 | publisher=Sage | isbn=978-0-85702-360-5 | oclc=779233283 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8lpzvGaEH68C}}</ref> [[Jared Diamond]] was influential in the resurgence of environmental determinism due to the popularity of his book ''[[Guns, Germs, and Steel]]'', which addresses the geographic origins of state formation prior to 1500 A.D.<ref name="Diamond1997GGS">{{cite book | last=Diamond | first=Jared | title=Guns, germs, and steel: The fates of human societies | url=https://archive.org/details/gunsgermssteelfa0000diam | url-access=registration | publisher=W.W. Norton & Company | date=March 1997 | isbn=978-0-393-03891-0}}</ref>

Neo-environmental determinism scholars debate how much the [[physical environment]] shapes economic and political [[institutions]]. Economic historians [[Stanley Engerman]] and [[Kenneth Sokoloff]] argue that [[factor endowments]] greatly affected "institutional" development in the Americas, by which they mean the tendency to more free (democratic, free market) or unfree (dictatorial, economically restrictive) regimes.

In contrast, [[Daron Acemoglu]], [[Simon Johnson (economist)|Simon Johnson]], and [[James A. Robinson (Harvard University)|James A. Robinson]] underscore that the geographic factors most influenced institutional development during early state formation and [[colonialism]]. They argue that geographic differences cannot explain economic growth disparities after 1500 A.D. directly, except through their effects on economic and political institutions.<ref name="Crown Business">{{cite book | last1=Acemoglu | first1=Daron | last2=Robinson | first2=James | title=Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity, and poverty | date=2012 | publisher=Crown Business | location=New York | isbn=978-0-307-71921-8 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/whynationsfailor00acem/page/1 1–546] | url=https://archive.org/details/whynationsfailor00acem/page/1}}</ref>

Economists [[Jeffrey Sachs]] and [[John Luke Gallup]] have examined the direct impacts of geographic and climatic factors on economic development, especially the role of geography on the cost of trade and access to markets, the disease environment, and agricultural productivity.<ref name="Geography and Economic Development">{{cite journal | last=Gallup | first=John Luke | last2=Sachs | first2=Jeffrey D. | last3=Mellinger | first3=Andrew D. | title=Geography and economic development | journal=International Regional Science Review | volume=22 | issue=2 | date=August 1999 | issn=0160-0176 | pages=179–232 | doi=10.1177/016001799761012334 | bibcode=1999IRSRv..22..179G | s2cid=11559764 | url=https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/publications/faculty-working-papers/001.pdf}}</ref>

The contemporary [[global warming]] crisis has also impacted environmental determinism scholarship. [[Jared Diamond]] draws similarities between the [[Climate change (general concept)|changing climate conditions]] that brought down the [[Easter Island]] civilization and modern [[global warming]] in his book ''[[Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed]]''.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Diamond | first1=Jared | title=Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed | date=January 4, 2011 | publisher=Penguin Group | location=New York | isbn=978-0-14-027951-1 | pages=1–621}}</ref> Alan Kolata, Charles Ortloff, and Gerald Huag similarly describe the [[Tiwanaku empire]] and [[Maya civilization]] collapses as caused by climate events such as [[drought]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Kolata | first1=Alan L. | last2=Ortloff | first2=Charles | title=Thermal Analysis of Tiwanaku Raised Field Systems in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia | journal=Journal of Archaeological Science | date=October 1989 | volume=16 | issue=3 | pages=233–263 | doi=10.1016/0305-4403(89)90004-6 | bibcode=1989JArSc..16..233K}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Huag | first1=Gerald | title=Climate and the collapse of Maya civilization | journal=Science | date=March 2003 | volume=299 | issue=5613 | pages=1731–1735 | doi=10.1126/science.1080444 | pmid=12637744 | bibcode=2003Sci...299.1731H | s2cid=128596188}}</ref> Peter deMenocal, Just as the earthworks in the deserts of the west grew out of notions of landscape painting, the growth of public art stimulated artists to engage the urban landscape as another environment and also as a platform to engage ideas and concepts about the environment to a larger audience. A scientist at the [[Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory]] at [[Columbia University]], writes that [[societal collapse]] due to climate change is possible today.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=deMenocal | first1=Peter B. | title=African climate change and faunal evolution during the Pliocene-Pleistocene | journal=Earth and Planetary Science Letters | date=December 2003 | volume=220 | issue=1–2 | pages=3–24 | doi=10.1016/s0012-821x(04)00003-2 | doi-access=free}}</ref>