Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Environmental History
Georgina H. Endfi eld
The Meaning Of Environmental History
Environmental history tells the story of society's interaction with the physical envi-
ronment. It represents an increasingly important approach with which to explore
the many ways in which humans and the environment affect each other at a range
of temporal and spatial scales, and is concerned with a number of important themes.
The fi rst is the way in which nature is organised, functions and operates, the iden-
tifi cation of the physical attributes of past environments, and how these have
changed over time. The second is the interaction between the socio-economic realm
and the environment. Finally, the third theme is concerned with the our intellectual
encounters with nature, that is to say the different ways in which humans perceive,
value and record nature though myths, law, ethics, custom and perception and other
symbolic mechanisms (Worster, 1988).
It is only over the last three decades or so, however, that environmental history,
at least as a discrete discipline, has been formally recognised. Moreover, its emer-
gence and development has been somewhat chequered: its remit, scope, goals and
purpose have been dissected and disputed, its intellectual, disciplinary, regional and
conceptual origins and evolution contested, and its defi nition debated. To some
extent this degree of scrutiny is a function of the subject's diverse and often con-
tested ancestry and its multiple traditions. Indeed, as a subject area, environmental
history is thought to have developed along a variety of distinctive evolutionary
intellectual and practical trajectories (Williams, 1994; Baker, 2003).
Environmental history is often regarded as a predominantly American enterprise
(Williams, 1994). As Crumley (1994, p. 21) highlighted, in the United States, 'envi-
ronmental historians initially focused on leaders of the conservationist and preser-
vationist movements and on the relationship of the frontier and wilderness to
American culture and politics'. Environmental history as an institutional form and
intellectual project, however, was only consolidated in the United States in the 1960s
and 1970s, as something of a radical branch of history and as a function of growing
environmental consciousness around this time (McNeill, 2003).
