Eric L. Jones' Revealed Biodiversity aims to provide a synthetic treatment of global environmental change and to bridge the fields of economic and environmental history. Jones' approach, impressive in its range, is nonetheless unlikely to satisfy practitioners in either field longing for an interdisciplinary synthesis.

Though framed as economic history, Revealed Biodiversity, by Jones' own admission, draws on “none of the [field's] techniques” (p. x). Jones rarely employs historical data sets or quantitative analysis, nor does he highlight institutional development or market mechanisms. What's left is largely an economist's skepticism of environmental cant. Consequently, the work veers more towards polemic than synthesis, hammering away at several interrelated arguments.

The broadest of these arguments, which appears in the opening paragraph of the hard-charging preface, is that “nature is not pure, abstract, independent of humanity” (p. ix). Jones treats this as a scandalous revelation, one that would shock environmentalists and environmental historians who tend “to hark back to a Golden Age when nature was supposedly unsullied” (p. xi). But such an attack on environmental history, at least, comes far too late—the field stands nearly twenty years removed from the publication of Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, an influential edited volume dedicated entirely to grappling with the challenges of understanding environmental history in a world where nature offers few baselines free of human interaction.

Jones' second major argument contends that this unfixed, contingent nature, “as we experience it, is substantially a product of the economy” (p. ix). Jones is not the first to tread such territory; indeed, much of modern environmental history examines how capitalism drives environmental change. But few would go as far as Jones in claiming that, “Environment has been and must remain an epiphenomenon of the economy” (p. 16). And what about politics, culture, and social relationships—all topics that also have received close attention over the past generation? Even in Revealed Biodiversity culture reveals its power, whether through the Jones' discussions of English pheasant shoots or Asian demands for animal parts thought to improve virility.

The starkest divergence, then, between Jones and many environmental historians stems not from the methodology or even the background framing but from certain conclusions reached. He stands squarely with Danish eco-contrarian Bj⊘rn Lomborg —cited repeatedly—in pushing against the ethical laments and declensionism that pervade environmentalism writ large. Jones reminds his readers, correctly, that the same industrialism that has decimated landscapes around the globe has also produced longer, healthier lives for billions. In other words, he concludes, “despite the costs in biodiversity, only misanthropes who dislike their grandchildren or at any rate other people's grandchildren” (p. 112) would protest. Moreover, for Jones, the inherent dynamism of nature means that “there is no fixed, unchanging fauna and flora whose loss we should lament.” (p. xxv). In his view, we are fools to mourn the disappearance of the American chestnut, a tree of unrivaled utility that virtually vanished from the eastern United States in the mid-twentieth century. Much of Jones' book, intriguingly, focuses on moments when individual species (sparrows, butterflies, or invasive plants) increased over time thanks to changes brought about by man's activities. This novel narrative emphasis gives the subject of environmental change a certain fresh energy, but it also produces a strange Pollyannish defeatism. Jones emphasizes that, while the environment will likely degrade further, we'll still find beauty and nature in the unintended consequences. For example, he concludes unsentimentally of predicted widespread avian species loss, “Their biomass, if not their variety, will continue to do well” (p. xxiii).

All of Jones' anti-hand-wringing supports his concept of “revealed biodiversity.” As he explains, economic growth has facilitated “the charm of humanized landscapes” and allowed more people the “ability to enjoy nature” (p. ix). “Revealed biodiversity,” then, refers not to “the variety or absolute number of species physically present” but to “the chance of enjoying the spectacles that do remain, like (say) the increasing number of humpback whales” (p. xxii). In other words, greater wealth will give more people the opportunity to interact with the unintentional “beneficial” consequences of industrialization. As an observation of where we are heading, Jones' outlook displays a certain chilling prescience, a glimpse at a future postindustrial petting zoo approach to nature. As an ethical posture, however, one need not be an environmentalist to recognize serious flaws in Jones' claim. He decouples the term “biodiversity” from its historical and scientific context, ignoring nearly all contemporary research concerning the role biodiversity plays in overall ecosystem health; he privileges those whose circumstances allow them to enjoy (say) humpback whale-spotting chartered tours and similarly favors wealthier nations that can more easily afford conservation measures; and his perspective strips any agency from local or indigenous communities that might not have consented to countless environmentally consequential activities. Revealed biodiversity is, in certain respects, the antithesis of Aldo Leopold's land ethic, which posits a moral obligation not just in the social realm but the environmental one as well, a “conviction of individual responsibility for the health of land.”

Jones also omits much that would challenge his arguments. Climate change receives almost no attention throughout the volume. The importance that conservationists have played in saving both individual species and landscapes from eradication or degradation is generally glossed over. The tropics, thought to house most of the globe's biodiversity, get only passing mention.

Jones, nonetheless, writes often with charm and erudition. His critiques of environmentalism, while often stretched to serve his arguments, warrant discussion, and he clearly relishes the chance to play provocateur. Furthermore, some of the book's middle chapters offer a close and careful analysis of environmental change in the English countryside. Nonetheless, such inspired passages fail to disarm the shortcomings. Where Jones sees a thriving field of fescue, other may fear the landmines underfoot.