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Topsoil and Civilization
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- GenresNonfictionHistory
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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March 24, 2015
Outside the entrance of the glorious Hall of Western History are the marble lions, colorful banners, and huge stone columns. Step inside, and the popular exhibits include ancient Egypt, classical Greece, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, Gutenberg, Magellan, Columbus, Galileo, and so on. If we cut a hole in the fence, and sneak around to the rear of the building, we find the dumpsters, derelicts, mangy dogs, and environmental history.
The Darwin of environmental history was George Perkins Marsh, who published Man and Nature in 1864 (). Few educated people today have ever heard of this visionary. Inspired by Marsh, Walter Lowdermilk, of the Soil Conservation Service, grabbed his camera and visited the sites of old civilizations in 1938 and 1939. He created a provocative 44-page report, Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years (). The government distributed over a million copies of it.
Lowdermilk helped inspire Tom Dale of the Soil Conservation Service, and Vernon Gill Carter of the National Wildlife Federation, to write Topsoil and Civilization, published in 1955 (). Both organizations cooperated in the production of this book. Following the horror show of the Dust Bowl, they were on a mission from God to promote soil conservation.
The book’s introduction gets directly to the point, “The very achievements of civilized man have been the most important factors in the downfall of civilizations.� Civilized man had the tools and intelligence needed “to domesticate or destroy a great part of the plant and animal life around him.� He excelled at exploiting nature. “His chief troubles came from his delusions that his temporary mastership was permanent. He thought of himself as ‘master of the world,� while failing to understand fully the laws of nature.�
Readers are taken on a thrilling tour of the civilizations of antiquity. We learn how they developed new and innovative strategies for self-destruction. Stops include Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean basin, Greece, China, India, and others. No society collapses because of a single reason, but declining soil health is always prominent among the usual suspects � no food, no civ.
The civilization of Egypt was the oddball. It thrived longest because of the unique characteristics of the Nile Valley. Then, in the twentieth century, they strangled the golden goose by building dams, which ended the annual applications of fertile silt, led to soil destruction, and shifted the system into self-destruct mode.
Mesopotamia (Iraq) was home to a series of civilizations that depended on irrigation. Creating and maintaining irrigation canals required an immense amount of manual labor, which legions of slaves were unhappy to provide. At the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, deforestation and overgrazing led to growing soil erosion, which flowed downstream, regularly clogging the canals. Eroded soils have filled in 130 miles (209 km) of the Persian Gulf. Today, the population in this region is only a quarter of what it was 4,000 years ago.
Over the centuries, the region of Mesopotamia was conquered and lost many, many times. For the most part, replenishing soil fertility with manure and other fertilizers was a fairly recent invention. In the old days, an effective solution to soil depletion was to expand into less spoiled lands, and kill anyone who objected. Throughout the book, the number of wars is stunning. The tradition of farming is a bloody one. It always damages the soil, sooner or later, which makes long-term stability impossible, and guarantees conflict.
Rome, Greece, and other Mediterranean civilizations were all burnouts, trashed by a combination of heavy winter rains, sloping lands, overgrazing, deforestation, soil depletion, and malaria. The legendary cedars of Lebanon once covered more than a million acres (404,000 ha). Today, just four tiny groves survive. “Deforestation and the scavenger goats brought on most of the erosion which turned Lebanon into a well-rained-on desert.� Much of once-lush Palestine, “land of milk and honey,� has been reduced to a rocky desert.
Adria was an island in the Adriatic Sea, near the mouth of the Po River in Italy. Eroding soils from upstream eventually connected the island to the mainland. Today, Adria is a farm town, 15 miles (24 km) from the sea, and its ancient streets are buried under 15 feet (4.5 m) of eroded soil. In Syria, the palaces of Antioch were buried under 28 feet (8.5 m) of silt. In North Africa, the ruins of Utica were 30 feet (9 m) below.
Even now, in the twenty-first century, there are dreamers who purport that China provides a glowing example of sustainable agriculture � 4,000 years of farmers living in perfect harmony with the land. Chapter 11 provides a silver bullet cure for these fantastic illusions. “Erosion continues to ruin much of the land, reducing China, as a whole, to the status of a poor country with poor and undernourished people, mainly because the land has been misused for so long.�
The authors aim floodlights on the fundamental defects of civilization, and then heroically reveal the brilliant solution, soil conservation. Their kinky fantasy was permanent agriculture, which could feed a gradually growing crowd for the next 10,000 years � a billion well-fed Americans enjoying a continuously improving standard of living. Their vision went far beyond conservation, which merely slowed the destruction. Their vision was about harmless perpetual growth, fully developing all resources, bringing prosperity to one and all, forever. Oy!
At the same time, they were excruciatingly aware that humankind was ravaging the land. “The fact is that there has probably been more man-induced erosion over the world as a whole during the past century than during any preceding thousand-year period. There are many reasons for the recent rapid acceleration of erosion, but the principal reasons are that the world has more people and the people are more civilized and hence are capable of destroying the land faster.� The book is more than a little bit bipolar.
For readers who enjoy the delights of mind-altering experiences, I recommend reading Topsoil and Civilization, a discourse on soil mining. Also read its shadow, a discourse on forest mining, A Forest Journey, by John Perlin. Your belief system will go into convulsions, and then a beautiful healing process begins.
You will suddenly understand that the stuff you were taught about the wonders of civilization was an incredibly delusional fairy tale. The real story is one of thousands of years of accelerating population growth, ruthless greed, countless wars, enormous suffering, and catastrophic ecocide. Suddenly, the pain of baffling contradictions is cured, the world snaps into sharp focus, and the pain of being fully present in reality begins � useful pain that can inspire learning and change. Live well.
The Darwin of environmental history was George Perkins Marsh, who published Man and Nature in 1864 (). Few educated people today have ever heard of this visionary. Inspired by Marsh, Walter Lowdermilk, of the Soil Conservation Service, grabbed his camera and visited the sites of old civilizations in 1938 and 1939. He created a provocative 44-page report, Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years (). The government distributed over a million copies of it.
Lowdermilk helped inspire Tom Dale of the Soil Conservation Service, and Vernon Gill Carter of the National Wildlife Federation, to write Topsoil and Civilization, published in 1955 (). Both organizations cooperated in the production of this book. Following the horror show of the Dust Bowl, they were on a mission from God to promote soil conservation.
The book’s introduction gets directly to the point, “The very achievements of civilized man have been the most important factors in the downfall of civilizations.� Civilized man had the tools and intelligence needed “to domesticate or destroy a great part of the plant and animal life around him.� He excelled at exploiting nature. “His chief troubles came from his delusions that his temporary mastership was permanent. He thought of himself as ‘master of the world,� while failing to understand fully the laws of nature.�
Readers are taken on a thrilling tour of the civilizations of antiquity. We learn how they developed new and innovative strategies for self-destruction. Stops include Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean basin, Greece, China, India, and others. No society collapses because of a single reason, but declining soil health is always prominent among the usual suspects � no food, no civ.
The civilization of Egypt was the oddball. It thrived longest because of the unique characteristics of the Nile Valley. Then, in the twentieth century, they strangled the golden goose by building dams, which ended the annual applications of fertile silt, led to soil destruction, and shifted the system into self-destruct mode.
Mesopotamia (Iraq) was home to a series of civilizations that depended on irrigation. Creating and maintaining irrigation canals required an immense amount of manual labor, which legions of slaves were unhappy to provide. At the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, deforestation and overgrazing led to growing soil erosion, which flowed downstream, regularly clogging the canals. Eroded soils have filled in 130 miles (209 km) of the Persian Gulf. Today, the population in this region is only a quarter of what it was 4,000 years ago.
Over the centuries, the region of Mesopotamia was conquered and lost many, many times. For the most part, replenishing soil fertility with manure and other fertilizers was a fairly recent invention. In the old days, an effective solution to soil depletion was to expand into less spoiled lands, and kill anyone who objected. Throughout the book, the number of wars is stunning. The tradition of farming is a bloody one. It always damages the soil, sooner or later, which makes long-term stability impossible, and guarantees conflict.
Rome, Greece, and other Mediterranean civilizations were all burnouts, trashed by a combination of heavy winter rains, sloping lands, overgrazing, deforestation, soil depletion, and malaria. The legendary cedars of Lebanon once covered more than a million acres (404,000 ha). Today, just four tiny groves survive. “Deforestation and the scavenger goats brought on most of the erosion which turned Lebanon into a well-rained-on desert.� Much of once-lush Palestine, “land of milk and honey,� has been reduced to a rocky desert.
Adria was an island in the Adriatic Sea, near the mouth of the Po River in Italy. Eroding soils from upstream eventually connected the island to the mainland. Today, Adria is a farm town, 15 miles (24 km) from the sea, and its ancient streets are buried under 15 feet (4.5 m) of eroded soil. In Syria, the palaces of Antioch were buried under 28 feet (8.5 m) of silt. In North Africa, the ruins of Utica were 30 feet (9 m) below.
Even now, in the twenty-first century, there are dreamers who purport that China provides a glowing example of sustainable agriculture � 4,000 years of farmers living in perfect harmony with the land. Chapter 11 provides a silver bullet cure for these fantastic illusions. “Erosion continues to ruin much of the land, reducing China, as a whole, to the status of a poor country with poor and undernourished people, mainly because the land has been misused for so long.�
The authors aim floodlights on the fundamental defects of civilization, and then heroically reveal the brilliant solution, soil conservation. Their kinky fantasy was permanent agriculture, which could feed a gradually growing crowd for the next 10,000 years � a billion well-fed Americans enjoying a continuously improving standard of living. Their vision went far beyond conservation, which merely slowed the destruction. Their vision was about harmless perpetual growth, fully developing all resources, bringing prosperity to one and all, forever. Oy!
At the same time, they were excruciatingly aware that humankind was ravaging the land. “The fact is that there has probably been more man-induced erosion over the world as a whole during the past century than during any preceding thousand-year period. There are many reasons for the recent rapid acceleration of erosion, but the principal reasons are that the world has more people and the people are more civilized and hence are capable of destroying the land faster.� The book is more than a little bit bipolar.
For readers who enjoy the delights of mind-altering experiences, I recommend reading Topsoil and Civilization, a discourse on soil mining. Also read its shadow, a discourse on forest mining, A Forest Journey, by John Perlin. Your belief system will go into convulsions, and then a beautiful healing process begins.
You will suddenly understand that the stuff you were taught about the wonders of civilization was an incredibly delusional fairy tale. The real story is one of thousands of years of accelerating population growth, ruthless greed, countless wars, enormous suffering, and catastrophic ecocide. Suddenly, the pain of baffling contradictions is cured, the world snaps into sharp focus, and the pain of being fully present in reality begins � useful pain that can inspire learning and change. Live well.
December 19, 2010
Edit: David Montgomery's is essentially an update of this book. It includes all of the important points from Topsoil, leaves out many of its redundancies, and goes on to explore hundreds of pages of great expansions of the thesis. Topsoil was great, but I would say that anyone interested in its content would be best served by jumping straight to Montgomery's superior text. /Edit
I figured out something about the relationship between the geographical procession of civilization and agriculture sometime last year, at least - it may have been mentioned in Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee? But I never really heard more on the subject, and so I was excited to discover, through a reference in Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, this book. It is an exposition of just that concept: progressive civilization has migrated over time because civilization as it has been practiced always degrades the land it depends on.
"Civilized man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints."
Soil erosion is the hidden environmental problem and the unsung historical factor responsible for the fall of essentially all of the great civilizations of the past. Dale and Carter, and their curious foreign correspondent, Walter Lowdermilk, take the reader on a brief walk through thousands of years of history in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Western Europe, and the US. In each case, we see different iterations of the same trend: ill-management of the land leaves a formerly fertile area impoverished, often nearly desertified. Erosion and siltation are the two main problems, and they often go hand in hand. Erosion takes away topsoil, which provides organic material, nutrients, and soaks up rainfall effectively. Siltation clogs up reservoirs and irrigation works and creates swamps that breed malaria. Both are caused by agriculture, though they take different forms in each climatic situation, and respond differently to human input changes. In short, every single major center of civilization except the Nile valley has become a despoiled desert.
Western Europe is the only civilization cited that apparently developed appropriate soil conservation practices. However, these practices were abandoned somewhat during the 20th century, and Europe's fate is up in the air. In the US, modern technology has allowed to to perpetrate some of the most rapid and egregious damage in the history of civilization. Carter and Dale point out that, since we know have Science, it is within our means to become the first perpetual civilization. However, in a refreshing change from most books on subjects like this, the authors are "inclined to think the odds favor a repetition of history, that the cycles of nature are irresistible, and that the systematic deterioration of the environment is almost inevitable. Man may have the technology to save himself, but does he have the character and the will to apply it?"
The authors give a good explanation of why this is the case: Individual development projects are assessed with cost-benefit analysis that compares the environmental harm to the economic good. However, environmental harm is a generally permanent thing, and so its costs are underestimated. As development continues, resources are exhausted and become more valuable. Environmental damage becomes concurrently more risky, but "as population increases, the need and the benefits [of exploiting the resource] will tend to become more important to the society as time passes. The losses and damage to the environment become less significant and in the evolving expediency, or in a fear psychology, the project will very likely be approved - sooner or later."
Interestingly, the authors spend quite a while saying that, if the efforts of the Soil Conservation Service (an innovative program started after the Erosion Emergencies of the dustbowl) aren't followed through within the next 25 years, then American civilization will have missed its chance and will certainly be meeting the fate of Rome and Easter Island. The revised edition of the book was written in 1974, and the changes Carter claims needed to have happened have been neglected. American civilization is apparently doomed. :(
The book never gave any kind of explanation or overview of soil science or agriculture's specific effects, and only briefly listed modern and traditional conservation techniques. That's probably alright, since most of it seems pretty straightforward, but it might have been worthwhile?
I figured out something about the relationship between the geographical procession of civilization and agriculture sometime last year, at least - it may have been mentioned in Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee? But I never really heard more on the subject, and so I was excited to discover, through a reference in Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, this book. It is an exposition of just that concept: progressive civilization has migrated over time because civilization as it has been practiced always degrades the land it depends on.
"Civilized man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints."
Soil erosion is the hidden environmental problem and the unsung historical factor responsible for the fall of essentially all of the great civilizations of the past. Dale and Carter, and their curious foreign correspondent, Walter Lowdermilk, take the reader on a brief walk through thousands of years of history in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Western Europe, and the US. In each case, we see different iterations of the same trend: ill-management of the land leaves a formerly fertile area impoverished, often nearly desertified. Erosion and siltation are the two main problems, and they often go hand in hand. Erosion takes away topsoil, which provides organic material, nutrients, and soaks up rainfall effectively. Siltation clogs up reservoirs and irrigation works and creates swamps that breed malaria. Both are caused by agriculture, though they take different forms in each climatic situation, and respond differently to human input changes. In short, every single major center of civilization except the Nile valley has become a despoiled desert.
Western Europe is the only civilization cited that apparently developed appropriate soil conservation practices. However, these practices were abandoned somewhat during the 20th century, and Europe's fate is up in the air. In the US, modern technology has allowed to to perpetrate some of the most rapid and egregious damage in the history of civilization. Carter and Dale point out that, since we know have Science, it is within our means to become the first perpetual civilization. However, in a refreshing change from most books on subjects like this, the authors are "inclined to think the odds favor a repetition of history, that the cycles of nature are irresistible, and that the systematic deterioration of the environment is almost inevitable. Man may have the technology to save himself, but does he have the character and the will to apply it?"
The authors give a good explanation of why this is the case: Individual development projects are assessed with cost-benefit analysis that compares the environmental harm to the economic good. However, environmental harm is a generally permanent thing, and so its costs are underestimated. As development continues, resources are exhausted and become more valuable. Environmental damage becomes concurrently more risky, but "as population increases, the need and the benefits [of exploiting the resource] will tend to become more important to the society as time passes. The losses and damage to the environment become less significant and in the evolving expediency, or in a fear psychology, the project will very likely be approved - sooner or later."
Interestingly, the authors spend quite a while saying that, if the efforts of the Soil Conservation Service (an innovative program started after the Erosion Emergencies of the dustbowl) aren't followed through within the next 25 years, then American civilization will have missed its chance and will certainly be meeting the fate of Rome and Easter Island. The revised edition of the book was written in 1974, and the changes Carter claims needed to have happened have been neglected. American civilization is apparently doomed. :(
The book never gave any kind of explanation or overview of soil science or agriculture's specific effects, and only briefly listed modern and traditional conservation techniques. That's probably alright, since most of it seems pretty straightforward, but it might have been worthwhile?
December 10, 2021
This is a very important treatise on the relationship between civilization and the availability of good topsoil. It also discusses the impact that the destruction of topsoil has on the movement, decline and impoverishment of societies throughout the ages, particularly western civilization. Of course, wars have been fought to maintain supplies of agricultural resources. For example Rome subjugated Egypt for its plentiful grain resources when the Boot of Italy could not supply its population. In this age, we would do well to pay attention to the overutilization of resources like water and arable land, which are being exploited by rapid population growth.
March 1, 2012
My real rating would be 2.5.
An interesting historical look at how the rise and fall of civilizations can be attributed to how they treat the environment upon which they depend. Carter goes into great detail explaining examples of past civilizations relation to soil. This detail can become tedious at times. It doesn't take long to get a sense of the general trend. The numerous anecdotes become repetitive and not altogether interesting. My biggest qualm is that the entire book is focused on Europe and North America. No coverage is given to civilizations in Central and South America, Asia or Africa.
An interesting historical look at how the rise and fall of civilizations can be attributed to how they treat the environment upon which they depend. Carter goes into great detail explaining examples of past civilizations relation to soil. This detail can become tedious at times. It doesn't take long to get a sense of the general trend. The numerous anecdotes become repetitive and not altogether interesting. My biggest qualm is that the entire book is focused on Europe and North America. No coverage is given to civilizations in Central and South America, Asia or Africa.
December 10, 2012
This mini-book will change the way you think of farming and land utilization. Even with its short length and accessible writing style, however, somewhere in the fourth or fifth portrait of a great civilization toppled by its misuse of land, it begins to feels repetitive. Definitely could have used a better editor.
Read
September 9, 2008An interesting overview of the history of bad land use. The overall concepts are very current. The details are sometimes a bit outdated. A good read.
September 25, 2012
Fascinating but tiring. It's short, but it's still repetitive.
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