Peder Anker

The Power of the Periphery: How Norway Became an Environmental Pioneer for the World

February 14, 2020 at 2:55 pm 1 comment

The Power of the Periphery: How Norway Became an Environmental Pioneer for the World, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Abstract

What is the source of Norway’s culture of environmental harmony in our troubled world? Exploring the role of Norwegian scholar-activists of the late twentieth century, Peder Anker examines how they portrayed their country as a place of environmental stability in a world filled with tension. In contrast with societies dirtied by the hot and cold wars of the twentieth century, Norway’s power, they argued, lay in the pristine, ideal natural environment of the periphery. Globally, a beautiful Norway came to be contrasted with a polluted world and fashioned as an ecological microcosm for the creation of a better global macrocosm. In this innovative, interdisciplinary history, Anker explores the ways in which ecological concerns were imported via Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, then to be exported from Norway back to the world at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

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Reviews

Jenna M. Coughlin, “The Power of the Periphery,” Scandinavian Studies 94:1 (2022), 131-134. [PDF]

Eva Jakobsson, “The Power of the Periphery,” Historisk tidsskrift 100:2 (2021), 184-187. [PDF]

Wuyishan, “Why Norway Became an Environmental Pioneer,” Chinese Science News, Oct. 14 2021.

Fabian Zimmer, “The Power of the Periphery,”  H-Soz-Kult, Aug. 20. 2021.

Josh Berry, “The Power of the Periphery,” Environmental Philosophy, 18:1 (2021), 151-154. [PDF]

Peder Roberts, “The Power of the Periphery,” Isis, 112:3 (Sept. 2021), 635-636. [PDF]

Gregory Ferguson-Cradler, “The Power of the Periphery,” Environment and History, 27:3 (2021), 505-507. [PDF]

Elena Kochetkova, “The Power of the Periphery,” Technology and Culture, 62:3 (July 2021), 941-942. [PDF]

Hedda Susanne Molland, “Å kle seg i miljønasjonens drakt,” Salongen, May 4, 2021.

Anders Dunker, “Den norske dobbeltmoralen,” Ny tid, Aug. 2020, 4-5. [Page 1], [Page 2]. English edition. 

Summary in Norwegian

Peder Anker, “Periferiens makt: Historia om miljøvitenskapen,” Syn og segn, 3:126 (2020), 69-75.

Summary in English

“Greenwashing a Nation,” LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, 15 (Spring 2022), 100-105

Blog-posts 

Peder Anker, “Greenwashing Norway“, Nordic Branding, Sept. 8, 2021. 

Nils Faarlund, “Full spredning av øko-filosofi“, Norges høgfjellsskole, June 4, 2021.  

Peder Anker, “Cabin Lockout“, Cambridge blog, Sept. 30, 2020.

Book talks

Stockholm +50: The Nordic Model of Ecological Transformation May 16, 2022.

Scandinavian Society Annual Meeting, April 30, 2022.

Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo March 14, 2022.

Venice Biennale of Architecture 2021, May 21, 2021. [Video]

Environmental History Week, April 19. 2021. [Video]

The National Library of Norway, April 12. 2021

Department of History, University of Bergen, Feb. 18, 2021.

Department of Philosophy, NTNU Trondheim, Feb. 9 2021

The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Jan. 21, 2021.

The Greenhouse, University of Stavanger, Nov. 2, 2020. [Video]

History of Science Society’s Annual Meeting, Oct. 8, 2020. [Video]

Institute of Public Knowledge, New York University, Oct. 6 2020. [Video]

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