Fabricating unity: the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World

Abstract: As a contribution to the United Nation’s “Development Decade” of the 1960s, the UN FAO and UNESCO collaborated to produce a Soil Map of the World. Because of soil’s privileged place in mid-twentieth century conservationist thought and its material characteristics, which were extraordinarily resistant to standardized classification, analysis of this project reveals with particular clarity how scientists made knowledge about the global environment in the international community. Producing credible global environmental knowledge required a worldwide network of disciplined observers, but soil scientists understood the Soil Map of the World as a means to produce this transnational community of experts. At a scale of 1:5 million, the units of the map applied to no place in particular; it was a heuristic device. The legend, which presented a new international classification system, was the critical accomplishment because it promised to unify diverse national soil science communities in a

Object Details

• Alternative title: Einheit schaffen: Die FAO-UNESCO Weltbodenkarte
• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Fabricating unity: the FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World ; volume:40 ; number:2 ; year:2015 ; pages:174-201 ; Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; Historical social research ; 40, Heft 2 (2015), 174-201

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Geschichte ; Naturwissenschaften

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Selcer, Perrin

Further information

• DOI: 10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.174-201
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-425525
• Rights: Open Access; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:51 AM CEST