A Review of Raf de Bont, Nature’s Diplomats: Science, Internationalism, and Preservation, 1920–1960. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021, 373 pp.

Abstract

“Nature’s Diplomats: Science, Internationalism, and Preservation, 1920–1960” (2021) by Raf de Bont, professor at the University of Maastricht, analyzes the long-term influence of ideas formulated in the first half of the 20th century for the international movement for nature conservation. As the author proves, the early 20th century naturalists and the nongovernmental organizations that they created exercised a decisive influence on the theory and practice of the international movement for nature protection throughout the 20th century. This influence is still noticeable in the early decades of the 21st century. The book shows that the “internationalism” of early organizations for nature conservation was rather limited, the social composition was far from inclusive, and the “scientific approach” was not as self-evident and ideologically neutral as we tend to think. The most influential figures in the international nature conservation were aristocratic landowners and the upper middle classes from leading urban centers of North-Western Europe and the east coast of the United States who had been trained and actively engaged in natural history.