Clarence Glacken Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Clarence James Glacken (1909-89) was a prominent cultural geographer and a key scholar in the development of environmental history. His work in bio-historical studies during the mid-20th century ranks him with Carl Ortwin Sauer and Rachel Carson. Glacken’s seminal work is his Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (1967). In this book, Glacken contends that there have been three archetypal questions posed through time about the earth and human relationships with it: Is the earth the creation of a higher power? Has the earth’s physical attributes (landforms, climates, the arrangement of its landmasses and water bodies) influenced both the social nature of its human occupants and the nature of human culture? And, In what ways have humans modified the earth? The third point became a central tenet within the discipline of geography as it developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continues to hold that position. The theme of human-environment interaction provides a basic premise in geographical studies.

Glacken points out in Traces on the Rhodian Shore that the separation of humans from their physical setting (a culture-nature conceptual disconnect) is of long standing in Western thought. Aristotle drew the distinction between entities created by humans and those found in the physical world, which are not of human origin. This separation continued until Immanuel Kant expressed the view of nature as culture, which is a notion embedded in the concept of social constructivism (the social construction of nature). This focus suggests that nature is viewed through the “cultural lens” of the individual and becomes a subjective consideration. The view of nature as culture has long been embraced within the social sciences and the humanities in which aspects of culture provide the primary reference. The precursors to the emergence of the conservation movement in Europe and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries are traced as well in Glacken’s work. The conservation movement and the subsequent environmental initiatives in the 1960s could not have occurred without the development and acceptance of a unified concept linking nature and culture.

Glacken was a highly respected member of the geography faculty at the University of California at Berkeley from 1952-76. On the occasion of his retirement in 1976, Glacken was honored with a Berkeley Citation, an award given to the most distinguished members and friends of the university for rendering notable services. Glacken also published a book in 1955 on Okinawan village life.

Bibliography:

Peter Atkins, Ian Simmons, and Brian Roberts People, Land and Time: An Historical Introduction to the Relations Between Landscape, Culture and Environment (Arnold Press, 1998);
Clarence J. Glacken, The Great Loochoo: A Study of Okinawan Village Life (University of California Press, 1955);
Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (University of California Press, 1967).