Environmental History is one of the most exciting and rapidly expanding new areas of historical study, and draws upon a wide range of disciplines for its insights and themes. Nature's End provides fifteen essays from historians, geographers, anthropologists and natural scientists on key themes and methods in the field, that address both those new to environmental history and seasoned practitioners. These studies illustrate the diversity of approaches to historic relationships between humans and their environments, but throughout the book connect these to core narratives in more traditional history: the role of the state and institutions, the importance of intellectual fashions and politics, and the role of the sciences and history itself, as well as the importance of ecology, and thinking about conservation, risk and human destiny.
'Nature's End is both an adept explanation of the ways in which historians can make the environment a central theme, and a treasure trove packed with gems of essays by leading scholars who show how it is done. This book is a state-of-the-art guide to contemporary questions in global environmental history.'
- J. Donald Hughes, University of Denver, USA
'This volume makes a contribution not only to the history of the environment, but also to its historiography and to the history of thought about the environment… It contributes to bridge-building between disciplines and also to a dialogue with other kinds of historian, whether they work on politics or culture.'
- Peter Burke, University of Cambridge, UK
'Leading scholars of environmental history clarify the discipline's epistemological context
and offer compelling case studies. Nature's End is indispensable reading for all who seek to meld the various communities of knowledge of our world.'
- Carole Crumley, University of North Carolina, USA
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Introduction; S.Sörlin & P.Warde
PART I: THE RISE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL
Imperialism and Environmental Change: Unearthing the Origins and Evolution of Global Environmental History; R.Grove & V.Damodaran
Habitat, Possession and Community: Reflections on the History of Conservation Ideas; B.Adams
The Field of Action: Agriculture and the Defining of the Environment in Pre-Industrial Europe; P.Warde
The Global Warming That Did Not Happen: Historicizing Glaciology and Climate Change; S.Sörlin
Genealogies of the Ecological Moment: Planning, Complexity and the Emergence of 'the Environment' as Politics in West Germany, 1949-1982; H.Nehring
PART II: HISTORY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
The Environmental History of Mountain Regions; R.Dodgshon
Interdisciplinary Conversations: the Collective Model; A.Davies
New Science for Sustainability in an Ancient Land; L.Robin
PART III: MAKING SPACE: ENVIRONMENTS AND THEIR CONTEXTS
Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight? Writing within and across Boundaries in North American Environmental History; M.Evenden & G.Wynn
Modernity and the Politics of Waste in Britain; T.Cooper
Why Intensity? Reflections on Long-Term Changes to Chinese Farming and the Institutional Steering of Modifications to the Environment; M.Elvin
'The pernicious calamities that occasion...hunger': Climate Variability and Social Vulnerability in Colonial Mexico; G.Endfield
PART IV: 'THINGS HUMAN'
Destiny and Decision: Taking the Lifeworld Seriously in Environmental History; K.Hastrup
Afterword; P.Burke
Index
PAUL WARDE is a Reader in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. Previous works include Economy, Ecology and State Formation in Early Modern Germany (2006) and Energy Consumption in England and Wales 1560-2000 (2007). He was the recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2008.
SVERKER SÖRLIN is Professor of Environmental History in the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Among his books are Sustainability – the Challenge (1998) and Narrating the Arctic (2002, with M.T.Bravo). He won the August [for Strindberg] Prize for his two volume History of European Ideas 1492-1918 (2004).
Description
Environmental History is one of the most exciting and rapidly expanding new areas of historical study, and draws upon a wide range of disciplines for its insights and themes. Nature's End provides fifteen essays from historians, geographers, anthropologists and natural scientists on key themes and methods in the field, that address both those new to environmental history and seasoned practitioners. These studies illustrate the diversity of approaches to historic relationships between humans and their environments, but throughout the book connect these to core narratives in more traditional history: the role of the state and institutions, the importance of intellectual fashions and politics, and the role of the sciences and history itself, as well as the importance of ecology, and thinking about conservation, risk and human destiny.
Reviews
'Nature's End is both an adept explanation of the ways in which historians can make the environment a central theme, and a treasure trove packed with gems of essays by leading scholars who show how it is done. This book is a state-of-the-art guide to contemporary questions in global environmental history.'
- J. Donald Hughes, University of Denver, USA
'This volume makes a contribution not only to the history of the environment, but also to its historiography and to the history of thought about the environment… It contributes to bridge-building between disciplines and also to a dialogue with other kinds of historian, whether they work on politics or culture.'
- Peter Burke, University of Cambridge, UK
'Leading scholars of environmental history clarify the discipline's epistemological context
and offer compelling case studies. Nature's End is indispensable reading for all who seek to meld the various communities of knowledge of our world.'
- Carole Crumley, University of North Carolina, USA
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Preface
Introduction; S.Sörlin & P.Warde
PART I: THE RISE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL
Imperialism and Environmental Change: Unearthing the Origins and Evolution of Global Environmental History; R.Grove & V.Damodaran
Habitat, Possession and Community: Reflections on the History of Conservation Ideas; B.Adams
The Field of Action: Agriculture and the Defining of the Environment in Pre-Industrial Europe; P.Warde
The Global Warming That Did Not Happen: Historicizing Glaciology and Climate Change; S.Sörlin
Genealogies of the Ecological Moment: Planning, Complexity and the Emergence of 'the Environment' as Politics in West Germany, 1949-1982; H.Nehring
PART II: HISTORY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
The Environmental History of Mountain Regions; R.Dodgshon
Interdisciplinary Conversations: the Collective Model; A.Davies
New Science for Sustainability in an Ancient Land; L.Robin
PART III: MAKING SPACE: ENVIRONMENTS AND THEIR CONTEXTS
Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight? Writing within and across Boundaries in North American Environmental History; M.Evenden & G.Wynn
Modernity and the Politics of Waste in Britain; T.Cooper
Why Intensity? Reflections on Long-Term Changes to Chinese Farming and the Institutional Steering of Modifications to the Environment; M.Elvin
'The pernicious calamities that occasion...hunger': Climate Variability and Social Vulnerability in Colonial Mexico; G.Endfield
PART IV: 'THINGS HUMAN'
Destiny and Decision: Taking the Lifeworld Seriously in Environmental History; K.Hastrup
Afterword; P.Burke
Index
Authors
PAUL WARDE is a Reader in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. Previous works include Economy, Ecology and State Formation in Early Modern Germany (2006) and Energy Consumption in England and Wales 1560-2000 (2007). He was the recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2008.
SVERKER SÖRLIN is Professor of Environmental History in the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Among his books are Sustainability – the Challenge (1998) and Narrating the Arctic (2002, with M.T.Bravo). He won the August [for Strindberg] Prize for his two volume History of European Ideas 1492-1918 (2004).
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