An 1864 book argued human action was reshaping the planet's land and water, decades before it was accepted

nature & planetThe Public Domain Review1864

An 1864 book argued human action was reshaping the planet's land and water, decades before it was accepted

the gist

George Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action in 1864. The book argued that human activity changes the earth's surface, its forests, waters, sands and animal life, and that these changes can have lasting consequences. Marsh used historical evidence to challenge the belief that land and sea resources were inexhaustible. He pointed out that many Mediterranean landscapes described by ancient writers had become deserted or degraded, a process he linked to the destruction of forests and what is now called desertification. Marsh was a statesman and scholar rather than an outdoorsman, and he stressed risks to people such as flooding, soil erosion and resource scarcity. He served as US minister to Italy from 1861 until his death in 1882.

so what

Marsh's argument laid groundwork for modern environmental science and conservation, showing that the damage humans do to landscapes is often gradual and cumulative. The book is still cited as an early account of humanity as a force in geography.

fun fact

Marsh was the longest-serving American envoy in US history, remaining in Italy from 1861 until his death in 1882.

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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