A Review of Julia Herzberg, Christian Kehrt, Franziska Torma (eds.), Ice and Snow in the Cold War: Histories of Extreme Climatic Environments. New York; Oxford: Berghahn, 2019, 322 pp.

Abstract

The collection of articles aims to contribute to two historical subdisciplines, Cold War studies and environmental history. It focuses on the role of cold, ice, and snow in the construction of “extreme” environments during the Cold War era, mainly by scientists and politicians. The book is divided into three parts: “Science: Sites of knowledge”, “Politics of confrontation and cooperation”, “Cultures and narratives of ice and snow”; the most complete and consistent of these is the first part, devoted to the development of American glaciology. The advantages of the collection are a geographical focus beyond traditional “extreme” environments — such as circumpolar regions — and the variety of research approaches to the topic. Its major under-analyzed “blind spot” includes the very identification of “extreme” with “cold” which is deeply connected to the modern idea of conditions appropriate for human habitability.