Second Presentation

In Richard White’s The Organic Machine, White crafts a unique perspective of the history of the Columbia River that combines the human history and environmental history of the river. In doing so, White argues that humans are intrinsically linked to the environment they live in and that in order to understand either human or environmental history, a broader, more objective view that examines both the natural and unnatural needs to be taken. White explains that man and nature share a common bond in the energy they produce. In examining the Columbia River, White finds that the work of human energy has harnessed nature’s energy for social purposes and as a result has shaped the society surrounding the river.

White’s thesis relies on the theory that natural and human history is linked. White writes in the introduction that “My argument in this book is that we cannot understand human history without natural history and we cannot understand natural history without human history.” According to white, humans are influenced by their environment and nature is influenced by the humans that inhabit it.

Perhaps the major strength of viewing history through the lens of White’s linked human and natural history is that it provides a new and broader perspective of history that has the potential to be more objective. White writes that:

…this is a river subdivided into separate spaces whose users speak to each other in a babel of discourses: law, religion, nature talk, economics, science and more…To come to terms with the Columbia, we need to come to terms with it as a whole, as an organic machine, not only as a reflection of our own social divisions but as the site which these divisions play out.[i]

White attempts to find a new perspective that is not confined to traditional ways of historical thought. If viewed from a neutral point of view, instead of an economist or fisherman’s perspective, it has the potential to be more objective and truthful.

He finds that humans and the river share a common bond through energy and work. First, White writes about the interaction between Indians that lived around the river and early settlers when he writes, “Passage along the river was…not just physical; it was social and political. Social and political rituals were as necessary as labor to move against the current. Indians expected gifts and ritual at the portages.” According to White, settlers expanded energy through labor to counter the river’s energy in its currents for safe passage on the river. As a result, social and political tension between Indians and settlers developed when settlers were forced to use Indian portages.

Ironically, while White is trying to find a more objective view of history, he takes on a critical tone towards the end of the book and admits to bias in his own research when he says, “I have purposely made the list on-sided to mirror and counter the self-congragulatory propaganda…” By choosing to omit further research about BPA projects, White becomes biased and risks turning his writing into the propaganda that he criticize. Furthermore, White uses Ralph Waldo Emerson as a source to explain the relationship between nature and man when he writes, “Emerson could simultaneously rejoice in the ability of the machine to subjugate and control nature and in the spiritual truth nature provided.” The danger of using Emerson as a main source is that he was a poet; he did not have the credibility of a scientist nor did he write about the Columbia.

Conclusively, White’s thesis is apt. He shows the connection between man in nature through examining how man attempts to harness energy from the river – through fishing salmon or building dams – and how the unnatural becomes the natural. By blurring the lines between natural and unnatural, White is able to show the Columbia River as a symbol for fractured society.