Jonathan D. Oldfield and Denis J.B. Shaw's The Development of Russian Environmental Thought is a valuable contribution to the growing field of Russian environmental history. The authors frame this book with the simple question: ‘How did geographers conceptualize the physical environment?’ (p. 1). In answering this question through looking at nearly 250 years of Russian history, the authors shed needed light on some of the ‘more positive’ (in the authors' words, p. 2) aspects of Russian ecological thought. Additionally, the authors demonstrate how geographers and scientists from related fields sought to influence decisions related to natural resources at the highest levels of the imperial and Soviet governments.

The first body chapter provides the reader with a sweeping overview of a 180-year period from Peter the Great's reign to roughly 1880, during which time geographers and scientists from related fields increasingly developed conceptions of the interrelatedness of the natural world. The next four chapters span from the 1880s to the 1960s. This organization is appropriate. The 1880s marked the wider acceptance of geography as it became a course regularly taught in universities. Moreover, during the 1880s, the soil scientist V.V. Dokuchaev developed a theory of soil zonation during the late nineteenth century that would leave a deep imprint on geographical thought. In the decades that followed, A.I. Voeikov, L.S. Berg, A.I. Morozov and other geographers and scientists in related fields would borrow these ideas to develop expanded conceptions of geographical, forest and climate zonation in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. The degree to which these zones should focus on ‘natural’ geographical features as compared to a combination of ‘natural’ and ‘cultured landscapes’ would become important to later debates within the field.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus largely on the efforts of Soviet geographers to exert influence on state policy while remaining on safe political ground under Stalin. While ‘science for science's sake’ was largely tolerated during the 1920s, geography, like all sciences, was expected to serve the goals of ‘socialist construction’ after Stalin's ‘Great Break’ (p. 93–94). This largely meant developing more accurate geographical surveys to determine how best to exploit the nation's natural resources during the 1930s. At the same time, geographers had to quickly learn how to frame their work within the constraints of Marxist–Leninist ideology while largely eschewing foreign contacts as they emphasized Russian scientific achievements. With the ascendance of ideologically laden, pseudo-scientific biological theories, geographers were even more constrained by Party demands by the late 1940s. It was during these years that Soviet geographers actively sought to provide their expertise in the implementation of the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, which, among other aims, sought to use many of Dokuchaev's ideas about afforestation of the steppe to prevent droughts. Chapter 6 demonstrates a paradigm shift within the geographical community that was made possible by Khrushchev's liberalizing reforms. With increased environmental concern in the USSR largely paralleling the emergence of environmentalism in the West, Soviet geographers began speaking about ‘complex use’ rather than the ‘transformation’ of nature (p. 147–149).

This chapter also illustrates the tensions that emerged between economic geographers and physical geographers during the early 1960s and the subsequent development of ‘constructive geography’ (p. 155–157). With economic geographers publicly criticizing physical geographers for keeping the discipline in the ‘descriptive stage’ and making calls for a ‘unified geography’ that would bridge the gap between the two disciplines, the head of the Institute of Geography, Innokenii Gerasimov, and other prominent geographers said that the generalist approach of geographers positioned them well to address some of the day's most important issues related to the environment and national economy (p. 156). These included, among others, the reduction of the Aral Sea's surface area, the protection of Lake Baikal and prospecting for oil in the Urals.

The authors have added another layer of complexity to older narratives that largely overlooked non-state actors and presented the Soviet state in an antagonistic relation to the natural world. Moreover, the authors have appropriately emphasized a point that Russian environmental historians would be well advised to continue investigating more thoroughly: the demands for ideological conformity under Stalin notwithstanding, the ideas of Russian geographers about the natural world were often strongly influenced by broader international concerns and scientific discourse. The ways in which Russian and Soviet geographers influenced Western ideas about the natural world falls outside the scope of this work, but begs for more thorough investigation. There are numerous other questions about broader Russian understandings (art and literature, for instance) of the natural world that fall outside this study. But the authors have achieved the stated aims of this work. In illuminating how geographers conceived the natural environment over the course of 250 years, they have made a valuable contribution to Russian environmental history.