Scorched Earth

This is a major reframing study of environmental warfare as a crime against humanity and nature – what the author calls 'environcide'. He points out that environmental infrastructures sustaining societies have since time immemorial been a target and instrument of war 'resulting in famine and disease, displaced populations, and the devastation of people's livelihoods and ways of life.' What he defines as total war is 'an indiscriminate and simultaneous destruction of society and environment' – this is ecocide and genocide in modern legal parlance, and perhaps the most immediate image is the one on the cover of Flanders in 1917, but one should also recall the US use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. His term environmental infrastructure is designed to overcome the dichotomy of nature and culture while also highlighting the enormous costs of restoration. In our own time, resource wars are likely to proliferate given pressures of rising demand and population. The bulk of the book is devoted to historical accounts of environmental warfare from the 16^th century onwards, also covering a large geographical area from Europe to the Americas, Africa and Asia – all this provides ample proof of his important thesis as a means of raising awareness of a particularly destructive form of ecological devastation that we can ill afford.