Gould and Eldredge present important reviews of the debates in geology regarding the critique of Darwinian theory and the emergence of modern understandings of earth-systems history. Harris and Trigger situate environmental determinism in the development of anthropology and archaeology. Arnold and Isenberg do the same for environmental history. These works are cited here rather than repeating citations throughout this article. Arnold, David. The problem of nature: Environment, culture and European expansion.
Oxford: Blackwell. Arnold explores the tension between cultural-idealist and ecological-materialist approaches to the history of humanity and nature. Eldredge, Niles. Eternal ephemera: Adaptation and the origin of species from the nineteenth century through punctuated equilibria and beyond. New York: Columbia Univ. Gould, Stephen Jay. The structure of evolutionary theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Harris, Marvin. The rise of anthropological theory: A history of theories of culture. Walnut Creek, CA: Altima. Originally published in Isenberg, Andrew, ed. The Oxford handbook of environmental history.
New York: Oxford Univ. DOI: Livingstone, David. Meyer Dylan M. Chapter First Online: 31 March Keywords Environmental determinism Environmental fatalism Nature—society interaction. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Blaut, James M. Google Scholar.
Chappell Jr. CrossRef Google Scholar. Freudenburg, William R. Martin, Geoffrey J. Within two decades, it had fallen out of favor. Critics cited the inherent racism in the theory and looked deeper into its eurocentric origins. The theory perpetuated imperialism and with the world reeling from a brutal war, there was little sense in talking about it after that.
In place of environmental determinism, a new concept arrives. Environmental possibilism states that even if the environment sets limitations for cultural development, it does not wholly define a culture.
Rather, culture is defined by the opportunities and decisions that human beings make in response to dealing with the limitations, difficulties, or advantages of their physical landscape. As a culture, we are not influenced by storms or rivers, we are influenced by discourse, by media, by the internet, and the digital age.
We are influenced by cuisine, political parties, memes, and shared interest. These concepts affect people on a global scale, they influence trends and push change forward. But this has always been the way of things. Thankfully, we are no longer limited by simple determinism, not when possibilism has so much more merit.
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