Piero Bevilacqua
La Terra È Finita - Breve Storia Dell'Ambiente

THE REVIEW

Piero Bevilacqua is a historian from Calabria, who has been teaching "Contemporary History" at La Sapienza University for years. A great connoisseur of landscape history and historical geography, he is one of the leading Italian authors of the French "Annales" school, which emphasized the importance of a historiography that questions history as a linear continuum of human progress. A longer-term historical stratification aimed at analyzing the role that territory has played over the course of events and the anthropization it has undergone and continues to undergo at the hands of humans.

"La terra è finita" is a historical/economic/environmental essay published by Laterza in 2006. A short work that dwells on fundamental themes of contemporary times, going back into the past to trace its causes and different historiographical interpretations. Bevilacqua is primarily interested in trying to define the economic processes that lie behind the environmental crisis that started from the second half of the 20th century. In this sense, the work somewhat reflects a clearly anti-capitalist stance, but it is the course of events themselves that have led scholars to tend to place the major responsibilities for today's pollution on capitalism, from its 19th-century roots.

Bevilacqua outlines the main lines of phenomena such as the "dust bowl" in the American Great Plains, the consequences of the "green revolution," the discussion on GMOs, as well as the various regulatory stages that have led to greater environmental awareness over the past decades.

An interesting little book, which does not go deep but "limits itself" to providing the necessary coordinates to delve into fundamental aspects of our society. One of those readings that intrigues and encourages one to immerse oneself in the subject. A very linear, conversational style, almost entirely devoid of technical jargon. A stimulating read.