Cycling and Recycling: Histories of Sustainable Practices

Published by Berghahn Books 2015

Cycling and Recycling

Histories of Sustainable Practices

Edited by: Ruth Oldenziel and Helmuth Trischler

Volume 7 in the series Environment in History: International Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782389712

Overview
Contents

About this book

Technology has long been an essential consideration in public discussions of the environment, with the focus overwhelmingly on creating new tools and techniques. In more recent years, however, activists, researchers, and policymakers have increasingly turned to mobilizing older technologies in their pursuit of sustainability. In fascinating case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of two such technologies—bicycling and waste recycling—tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today.

Author / Editor information

Ruth Oldenziel is Professor of American and European History at the Eindhoven University of Technology and visiting scholar at the LMU Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. Her books include Consumers, Users, Rebels: The People Who Shaped Europe with Mikael Hård; Cold War Kitchen with Karin Zachmann; Gender and Technology with Nina Lerman and Arwen Mohun; and Making Technology Masculine.

Helmuth Trischler is Head of Research of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Professor of Modern History and the History of Technology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Co-Director (with Christof Mauch) of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. His most recent book is Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers with Martin Kohlrausch.

Ruth Oldenziel is Professor of American and European History at the Eindhoven University of Technology and visiting scholar at the LMU Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. Her books include Consumers, Users, Rebels: The People Who Shaped Europe with Mikael Hård; Cold War Kitchen with Karin Zachmann; Gender and Technology with Nina Lerman and Arwen Mohun; and Making Technology Masculine.

Reviews

“…an informative and very readable volume that offers stimulating ideas for further research.” • Technikgeschichte

“The reviewer freely admits to have learned many interesting and fascinating facts about ‘Cycling and Recycling’ in very different country contexts. In addition, most of the contributions have been written in such a way as to be so comprehensible and jargon-free as to make them accessible also to readers beyond the narrow circle of specialists, which appears particularly important for an interdisciplinary field such as environmental history. In addition, the collection reveals, beyond the semantic bracket of the title, a thematic stringency that one can only wish for in the cases of many available syntheses bound together.” • H-Soz-Kult

“This book’s conceptual framework is truly innovative and makes a much-needed intervention in the vast literature on sustainability. Writing against the ‘techno-fix mentality’ that dominates so many contemporary environmental discourses, the editors persuasively argue for the need to resurrect ‘older technologies for a new purpose.’” • Edward D. Melillo, Amherst College

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
How Old Technologies Became Sustainable: An Introduction Ruth Oldenziel and Helmuth Trischler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I Cycling Histories
CHAPTER 1 Use and Cycling in West Africa Hans Peter Hahn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
CHAPTER 2 The Politics of Bicycle Innovation: Comparing the American and Dutch Human-Powered Vehicle Movements, 1970s–Present Manuel Stoffers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
CHAPTER 3 Scarcity, Poverty, Exclusion: Negative Associations of the Bicycle’s Uses and Cultural History in France Catherine Bertho Lavenir Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
CHAPTER 4 Who Pays, Who Benefi ts? Bicycle Taxes as Policy Tool, 1890–2012 Adri Albert de la Bruhèze and Ruth Oldenziel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
CHAPTER 5 Monuments of Unsustainability: Planning, Path Dependence, and Cycling in Stockholm Martin Emanuel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
PART II Intersections
CHAPTER 6 Bicycling and Recycling in Japan: Divergent Trajectories M. William Steele Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
PART III Recycling Histories
CHAPTER 7 Premodern Sustainability? Th e Secondhand and Repair Trade in Urban Europe Georg Stöger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
CHAPTER 8 Waste to Assets: How Household Waste Recycling Evolved in West Germany Roman Köster Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
CHAPTER 9 Ecological Modernization of Waste-Dependent Development? Hungary’s 2010 Red Mud Disaster Zsuzsa Gille Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
CHAPTER 10 The Scramble for Digital Waste in Berlin Djahane Salehabadi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
PART IV Reflections
CHAPTER 11 Can History Offer Pathways to Sustainability? Donald Worster Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
CHAPTER 12 History, Sustainability, and Choice Robert Friedel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	240

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Keywords: bicycling and waste recycling; exploration of bicycling; exploration of waste recycling; activists; researchers; policymakers; mobilizing older technologies; pursuit of sustainability; tracing development; context for policy today; public discussions of environment; historical

eBook

Published: December 1, 2015
ISBN: 9781782389712