Richard White Organic Machine Remaking of the Columbia River Hill & Wang Paper Read this : Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia

Richard White Organic Machine Remaking of the Columbia River Hill & Wang Paper Read this : Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River Hill & Wang, 1996 The writing instruction is post in the attached file, Need 2 full pages. 600 words. Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River Hill & Wang, 1996
Introduction:
In White’s introduction, he writes, “I want to examine the river as an organic machine, as an energy
system which, although modified by human interventions, maintains its natural, its ‘unmade’ qualities.”
He concludes that “In treating the Columbia as a machine we have literally and conceptually
disassembled the river. It has become to its users a set of separate spaces and parts.” (110)
White represents one of the luminary thinkers in the fields of environmental history and the American
West. White approaches “environmental history” as the interplay between human history and natural
history, rather than a narrow socio-political narrative of the “environmental movement.” White claims
that “Environmentalists, for all their love of nature, tend to distance humans from it” (x). Do you agree
with this argument? How does White propose we look at nature and evaluate our relationship with it?
Framing Questions:
Students might consider the following questions when reading this book. Students are not required to
answer these specific questions. Also, please remember the purpose is not to memorize the content of
the book, but to critically engage and develop an understanding of how the book was written.
1) Does White successfully explain and explore the Columbia River as an “Organic Machine” in his book?
What “natural” and “unmade” qualities of the Columbia River is he talking about? How do you explain
White’s concept of this ostensible oxymoron—an “organic machine?
2) Did the historical actors building the dams intend to “De-Nature” the river? Or did they intend to
“mimic” nature?
3) What does White mean when he says humans know nature through “labor” (e.g. expending energy or
doing work)? White states: “labor rather than ‘conquering’ nature involves human beings with the
world so thoroughly that they can never be disentangled.” (7)
4) How does White explain a “Geography of Energy?” (12) What did the concept of energy–or
harnessing nature’s power–represent to human society? (48)
5) White also underscores the importance of “spatial arrangement” in human history and examines the
“cultural organization of space” at critical fishing sites along the Columbia, such as Celilo Falls. He even
mentions “racialized space”—“at which humans contested over social power–the ability to gain
advantage from the labor of others.” (14) How was space along the river reorganized along racial and
class lines? Did the allocation of natural space for commercial purposes transform natural space into
species of private property?
6) Why does White define most modern Americans as Emersonian? How did Ralph Waldo Emerson
perceive the machine as a force of nature . . . as something organic not synthetic? How did Emerson’s
philosophy reconcile capitalism and nature . . . the practical and the spiritual . . . the utilitarianism with
idealism?
7) Why did the federal government finally embrace hydro-electric power as an economic or social
justification for building dams? What had the attitude toward hydro-electric power been in the
Progressive Era and the 1920s? What caused this change?
8) Who was Lewis Mumford? How does White interpret his concepts of “Paleotechnic” and
“Neotechnic.” Did hydro-electricity become a surrogate frontier? Did it unleash a new era of expansion,
growth, and democratic revitalization? On page 56, White writes “Hydroelectric power would
purify polluted industrial cities, and they would also purify human society. Electricity would restore
workers to the countryside . . . electricity would promote independence and decentralization.”
How would society be purified by hydroelectric power? To what extent was this idea proven to be true
or false?
9) How did radiation create a new geography of energy on Columbia? What was the “Invisible
Geography of Iodine 131″?

Purchase answer to see full
attachment