The ideal river

<p>The environment has traditionally been a marginal concern in international relations but the climate crisis has highlighted the importance of the relationship between society and the natural world.<br><br> In <i>The ideal river</i> Joanne Yao offers a remarkable account of how nineteenth-century efforts to tame nature shaped our modern international order. Examining historic attempts to establish international commissions on three transboundary rivers - the Rhine the Danube and the Congo - she reveals how the Enlightenment ambition to master the natural world has informed our geographical imagination of the international.<br><br> This idea of domination over nature shaped three concepts central to the emergence of early international order: the territorial sovereign state imperial hierarchies and international organisations. As <i>The ideal river </i>shows the relationship between society and nature is at the heart of international politics.</p>