Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. What Was an Environment? -- Chapter 1. The World in the Museum: Natural History and the Invention of Organisms and Environments in Post- Revolutionary Paris -- Chapter 2. Environments of Empire: Disease, Race, and Statistics in the British Caribbean -- Chapter 3. The Urban Milieu: Evolutionary Theory and Social Reform in Progressive Chicago -- Chapter 4. The Biosphere as Battlefield: Strategic Materials and Systems Theories in a World at War -- Chapter 5. The Evolution of Risk: Toxicology, Consumption, and the US Environmental Movement -- Chapter 6. The Human Planet: Globalization, Climate Change, and the Future of Civilization on Earth -- Conclusion. What Might the Environment Become? -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index
In: George Thadathil, "History, Culture, Environment and Development: Kerala and Darjeeling A Study in Contrast" in Anjan Chakrabarti et al, Interrogating Development: Perspectives on Economy, Enviornment, Ethnicity and Gender, Delhi: Setu Prakashani, 2017, pp. 174-185
Mobility - the movements of people, things, and ideas, as well as their associated cultural meanings - has been a key factor in shaping Canadians' perceptions of and interactions with their country. Approaching the burgeoning field of environmental history in Canada through the lens of mobility reveals some of the distinctive ways in which Canadians have come to terms with the country's climate and landscape. Spanning Canada's diverse regions, throughout its history, from the closing of the age of sail to the contemporary era of just-on-time delivery, Moving Natures: Mobility and the Environment in Canadian History examines a wide range of topics, from the impact of seasonal climactic conditions on different transportation modes, to the environmental consequences of building mobility corridors and pathways, to the relationship between changing forms of mobility with tourism and other recreational activities. Contributors make use of traditional archival sources, as well as historical geographic information systems (HGIS), qualitative and quantitative analysis, and critical theory. This thought-provoking collection divides the intersection of environmental and mobility history into two approaches. The chapters in the first section deal primarily with the construction and productive use of mobility technologies and infrastructure, as well as their environmental constraints and consequences. The chapters in the second section focus on consumers' uses of those vehicles and pathways: on pleasure travel, tourism, and recreational mobility. Together, they highlight three quintessentially Canadian themes: seasonality, links between mobility and natural resource development, and urbanites' experiences of the environment through mobility.
Since around 1500 C.E., humans have shaped the global environment in ways that were previously unimaginable. Bringing together leading environmental historians and world historians, this book offers an overview of global environmental history throughout this remarkable 500-year period. In eleven essays, the contributors examine the connections between environmental change and other major topics of early modern and modern world history: population growth, commercialization, imperialism, industrialization, the fossil fuel revolution, and more. Rather than attributing environmental change largely to European science, technology, and capitalism, the essays illuminate a series of culturally distinctive, yet often parallel developments arising in many parts of the world, leading to intensified exploitation of land and water. The wide range of regional studies—including some in Russia, China, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Southern Africa, and Western Europe—together with the book's broader thematic essays makes The Environment and World History ideal for courses that seek to incorporate the environment and environmental change more fully into a truly integrative understanding of world history. CONTRIBUTORS: Michael Adas, William Beinart, Edmund Burke III, Mark Cioc, Kenneth Pomeranz, Mahesh Rangarajan, John F. Richards, Lise Sedrez, Douglas R. Weiner
This book provides a comprehensive and comprehensible history of China from prehistory to the present. Focusing on the interaction of humans and their environment, the author traces changes in the physical and cultural world that is home to a quarter of humankind. Through both word and image, this work illuminates the chaos and paradox inherent in China's environmental narrative, demonstrating how historically sustainable practices can, in fact, be profoundly ecologically unsound. The author also reevaluates China's traditional "heroic" storyline, highlighting the marginalization of nature that followed the spread of Chinese civilization while examining the development of a distinctly Chinese way of relating to and altering the environment. And also, he makes the compelling argument that all of humanity has a stake in China's environmental future
Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Chapter 1 Anthropocentric environmentalism -- Placing (European) humans first -- Scrambles in Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific -- Enter the environmentalists? -- To the 1900 convention -- The 1902 bird convention -- Marine life -- World war -- New hope? -- Chapter 2 From war through war -- Whaling -- Oil pollution -- Fisheries -- The 1933 convention -- Birds in North America -- Transboundary pollution -- A World again at war -- The United Nations -- Chapter 3 Cold war, science, and the environment -- Containment, fisheries, and whaling -- Korea -- Science, nature, and the cold war -- The Great Leap Forward -- The atomic arms race -- From moratorium to test ban -- Victory for the environmentalists? -- Chapter 4 Silent Spring, Stockholm, and the North-South divide -- The new environmentalism -- Vietnam and the environment -- Marine life -- Decolonization and the North-South divide -- LDCs and the environment -- Stockholm -- Stockholm's legacy -- Omens -- Chapter 5 Creating regimes -- Stockholm: A legacy lacking -- The Anglo-American shift -- Marine life -- Acid rain and the climate conundrum -- The ozone quandary -- Chernobyl -- The Persian Gulf War -- Addressing ozone -- Hazardous waste -- To Rio -- The Rio conference -- The resistance to environmental regimes -- Chapter 6 The Anthropocene epoch? -- Addressing the Rio Agenda -- NAFTA -- Marine life -- Hazardous waste -- The ozone layer and climate change -- Johannesburg -- The challenges persist -- The climate conundrum continues -- Paris -- Nuclear power and plastics -- In the Anthropocene? -- Conclusion: Accomplishments and challenges -- Accomplishments -- Challenges at sea -- Challenges on land: Poaching, poison, and radiation -- Demographic challenges
This book is the first volume of a monograph series published by the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The purpose of the series is to make works by Japanese scholars accessible to a wider readership and to increase the knowledge of scholars in this field, particularly in relation to Asia. This volume includes four chapters on energy and the environment of Japan, China, and Britain, and four short book reviews on recent academic works published in Japanese and English. The four chapters cover the following topics: the relationship between deforestation and the development of the silk reeling industry in a district of Nagano Prefecture (central Japan) from the 1870s to the 1900s and the subsequent shift from firewood to coal; the importance of timber supplies for the development of industry as illustrated by a case study on the supply of timber for use as rail sleepers in the Japanese national railway network during the prewar period; a methodological survey of the history of ecology and the environment in China; and an analysis of the British Smoke Nuisance Abatement Act of 1821 as a measure that incorporated the interests of politicians, landlords, and industrialists.
This book is the first volume of a monograph series published by the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The purpose of the series is to make works by Japanese scholars accessible to a wider readership and to increase the knowledge of scholars in this field, particularly in relation to Asia. This volume includes four chapters on energy and the environment of Japan, China and Britain and four short book reviews on recent academic works published in Japanese and English. The four chapters cover the following topics: the relationship between deforestation and the development of the silk reelin
Environmental History as a distinct discipline is now over a generation old, with a large and diverse group of practitioners around the globe. This book provides a reflection on the achievements, diversity, and direction of environmental history in its varied national, international and continental contexts.