Abstract
I know that one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this one speaks volumes about the book’s content. It features a color aerial photograph of a bucolic residential landscape perched on a precipice that drops off into the bare, gray rock of an open pit mine. Between these two landscapes – one ordered, the other chaotic – an ominous, diagonal shadow seems to creep into the abyss. In white letters over this inky shadow, the author’s name and the four-word title almost defy the reader to open this book. As I began reading it, I found myself in territory similar to the places that I wrote about in Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America’s Historic Mining Districts (University of Iowa Press, 1991). At that time, I noted that ‘these hard places are characterized by environmental abuse, pragmatism, and economic exploitation, and their landscapes do not conceal these facts’. Of these places, I concluded ‘we are not content to watch them disappear after their main reason for existing is gone’ and may preserve them and their memory in varied ways. Anna Storm’s book interprets European post-industrial landscapes of many kinds – including mining, steel milling, and even nuclear power plants – that now serve a far different purpose than they did originally. Although these new uses may be related to recreation, conservation, retailing, and housing, they are always framed by the visual legacy of the heavy industry that created them.
These landscapes may elicit many responses, including outrage, but I applaud Storm for not overly moralizing about them. She recognizes that the word ‘scar’ is potent and evocative, but quickly explains that scars can serve many purposes. Whereas moralistic readers (and reviewers) may claim that Storm should have condemned those who created these scars, she avoids that simplistic temptation. Storm fully understands our culture’s ambivalence toward such places. As she observes in the introduction: ‘Post-industrial landscape scars are marks of sorrow and betrayal, of the abuse of power and latent hazards. At the same time, they bear tales of communities and dreams, of achievements and resistance’ (p. 1). This introductory chapter breaks new ground, metaphorically speaking. Storm’s examination of landscape scars as being akin to the body scarification that some cultures value is interesting and thought-provoking. Then, too, many people bear accidental scars with considerable pride. Above all, scars tell stories. Astutely, Storm notes that ‘the narrative potential of a scar is a possibility and a promise we ought to embrace’ (p. 1). I wholeheartedly agree.
In that spirit of more deeply understanding the significance of scars, Storm analyzes the topographic and architectural features through five case study areas, each of which represents a chapter. In Chapter 2 (titled ‘Unstable Mountain’), Storm analyzes the evolution of iron mining company towns in Sweden’s far north. Storm concludes that the open pit at Malmberget, which is featured on the cover, not only caused dislocation but also came to be viewed as a symbol of Swedish monetary wealth; this mine now serves as a ‘memory trigger’ whose ‘potential is an enhancement of shared memories explicitly connected to the landscape scar in the midst of the town of Malmberget’ (p. 45). In the next chapter, titled ‘Distance of Fear’, Storm interprets the impact of the nuclear power plant at Barsebak (Sweden). She begins that chapter with a paradoxical truism: ‘The closer to hazardous industrial enterprise you live, the less afraid you are’ (p. 47). Like all the chapters in this book, this one involves on-site interviews as well as solid historical research. In Chapter 4, ‘Lost Utopia’, Storm tackles head on the role that politics plays in memory-making. The case study is Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power plant, which was built in close proximity to several towns. Storm notes: ‘the plant made a remarkable symbolic journey from being an expression of advanced Soviet technological progress, to a despised sign of Moscow’s imperialistic ambitions threatening human health, the environment, and ultimately the Lithuanian nation, to prove to be a most valuable energy resource for independent Lithuania … and, finally, to end its operational life as a concession to the negotiations concerning Lithuanian EU membership’ (p. 75). Although Ignalina escaped the nuclear meltdown experienced by Chernobyl, it was forced to close prematurely, leaving ‘nuclear waste and a town full of people seeking new ways to make a living’ (pp. 76–7). Here, understandably, the scars signify both hope and betrayal.
In Chapter 5 (‘Industrial Nature’), Storm uses Germany’s Ruhr and other locales to show how these industrialized places may be turned into natural areas or gentrified. This is a rich chapter, covering many subjects, including the role of ruins in romanticizing landscapes. Back in 1991, I called this impulse ‘technostalgia’, and it still operates today. The Swedish iron mines mentioned earlier helped create Avesta, a steel milling town that is the focus of Chapter 6. Titled ‘Enduring Spirit’, this chapter interprets what happened when a once gritty landscape became themed, its people (and workforce) now split between those who remember the industrial past and those who enjoy its new post-industrial aesthetic.
In the concluding chapter, titled ‘Prospective Scars Unfolding’, Storm summarizes the lessons she (and we) have learned from the five case studies. This is a short but very insightful chapter, for it not only looks backward but also into the future. Storm suggests that memory involves ‘an unfolding engagement that shapes new understandings, new places, and new worlds’ (p. 158). As Post-Industrial Landscape Scars ably demonstrates, listening carefully to the stories people tell about landscapes can help us better appreciate both the people and the places with which they interact.