Environmental history is the study of how humans have interacted with the natural world over time. It shows how nature affects humans and how humans affect nature.

Environmental history began in the United States during the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the reasons for studying this field today come from current global environmental problems. It started with issues about protecting nature but now includes more general topics like social history and science. It may examine cities, population growth, or ways to use resources wisely. Since all history happens in the natural world, environmental history often focuses on specific time periods, places, or key topics. It also uses many different subjects, including both the humanities and natural sciences.

The topics studied in environmental history can be divided into three main parts. The first part is about nature itself and how it has changed over time. This includes how humans have affected Earth's land, water, air, and living things. The second part looks at how humans use nature. This includes the effects of growing populations, better technology, and changes in how people produce and use resources. Other important topics include the shift from nomadic hunter-gatherer groups to farming communities during the Neolithic Revolution, the effects of colonial expansion and settlements, and the environmental and human changes caused by the Industrial and technological revolutions. The third part studies how people think about nature. This includes how beliefs, values, and ideas—such as myths, religion, and science—influence how humans interact with the natural world.

Origin of name and early works

In 1967, Roderick Nash published Wilderness and the American Mind, an important book in the study of the environment and its relationship with people. In a speech to the Organization of American Historians in 1969 (published in 1970), Nash used the phrase "environmental history," though the term is usually considered to have been first used in 1972. The 1959 book Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920 by Samuel P. Hays, while an important work in American political history, is now also seen as an important early work in the field of environmental history. Hays is a retired professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Alfred W. Crosby’s book The Columbian Exchange (1972) is another important early work in environmental history.

Historiography

Brief summaries of how environmental history has been studied have been written by J. R. McNeill, Richard White, and J. Donald Hughes. In 2014, Oxford University Press published a book with 25 essays titled The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History.

There is no single, agreed-upon definition of environmental history. In general, it is a type of history that explains why the environment is the way it is today and how humans have affected it. Donald Worster, in 1988, said environmental history is the "interaction between human cultures and the environment in the past."

In 2001, J. Donald Hughes described the subject as the "study of how humans have interacted with natural communities over time to explain changes in that relationship." In 2006, he added that environmental history is "history that seeks to understand how people have lived, worked, and thought in relation to nature through time." He also said that as a method, environmental history uses ecological analysis to understand human history and how human societies have changed along with the natural environment. Environmental historians also study "what people think about nature and how they have expressed those ideas in religion, culture, literature, and art." In 2003, J. R. McNeill defined environmental history as "the history of the mutual relations between humankind and the rest of nature."

Traditional history has expanded over time from focusing on a few important people to studying broader social, political, economic, and cultural topics. Environmental history adds even more areas to the study of history. In 1988, Donald Worster said environmental history "attempts to make history more inclusive" by examining "the role and place of nature in human life." In 1993, he said environmental history explores "how the natural world has influenced human history and how people have thought about and tried to change their surroundings." The idea that humans and nature depend on each other to shape landscapes is called the "cultural landscape." Worster also asked, "We study humans and nature; therefore, can anything human or natural be outside our study?"

Environmental history is usually considered a special area within history. However, some historians argue that traditional history focuses only on humans and their institutions, but "humans cannot place themselves outside the principles of nature." In this view, environmental history is a version of human history that includes nature’s role, not just human actions.

J. Donald Hughes responded to the idea that environmental history lacks theory by looking at it through three areas: nature and culture, history and science, and scale. This builds on Donald Worster’s earlier work, though both historians agree that the focus of their categories may vary depending on the study. Some studies focus more on society and human affairs, while others focus more on the environment.

Environmental history uses themes to explore these areas. A traditional approach looks at changes in the Earth’s ecology through events like the separation of humans from nature during the Neolithic Revolution, imperialism, exploration, agricultural changes, the Industrial Revolution, and urban growth. Other topics include human impacts on forests, fire, climate change, and sustainability. Paul Warde said that the history of colonization and migration can include environmental aspects, such as how ideas and species spread globally. Richard Grove has written about the importance of colonial activities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. Much of the writing in this field includes case studies at global, national, and local levels.

Although environmental history can cover billions of years and the entire Earth, it can also focus on small areas or short time periods. Many environmental historians study local, regional, or national histories. Some focus only on human history, while others include the time before humans existed on Earth. For example, Ian Simmons’s Environmental History of Great Britain covers about 10,000 years. There is often a difference in time scales between natural and human events: changes in the environment that happened long ago may be studied in a much shorter time period.

Although environmental influences have always affected areas beyond specific regions and cultures, human-caused environmental changes have become global in the 20th and early 21st centuries. This includes climate change, the spread of disease, and the expansion of global trade.

History

Environmental history has been studied for many years, even before modern times. Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, believed that the environment, including air, water, and location, influenced the health and behavior of people in different cultures. Later, scholars like Ibn Khaldun and Montesquieu also thought that climate played a major role in shaping human actions. During the Enlightenment, scientists began to pay more attention to the environment and explored ideas about sustainability through natural history and medicine. However, environmental history as a formal subject is usually considered to have started in the 20th century.

In 1929, a group of French historians created the journal Annales, which focused on how the environment and human society influenced each other. This journal was an early example of modern environmental history. The Annales School emphasized how the physical environment affected civilizations by studying long-term changes in agriculture, population, and geography instead of focusing on politics or intellectual history. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, a student of the Annales School, was among the first to study environmental history in a more modern way during the 1950s. Lucien Febvre, a key member of the Annales School, wrote a book in 1922 titled A Geographical Introduction to History, which is still widely read in the field.

In the United States, environmental history became a major area of study. Teaching programs for environmental history first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, along with the rise of environmentalism and efforts to protect natural resources. This period was partly a response to earlier historical views that focused on human progress and technology as ways to control nature. Environmental historians aimed to create a more inclusive history that considered the effects of human actions on the environment.

American writers and activists like Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson inspired environmental historians. Early work to define the field in the United States was done by Roderick Nash and other historians who studied how people settled new areas. Later, more specialized historians such as Alfred Crosby, Donald Worster, and William Cronon expanded these ideas. Similar work was also done in Europe by scholars like Paul Warde and Peter Coates.

Environmental history grew quickly in the United States after 1970 but was not widely studied by historians of the British Empire until the 1990s. Gregory Barton suggests that ideas about environmentalism began with studies on forests and that the British Empire played a key role in these efforts. In India around 1900, British officials created protected forest areas, improved fire protection, and focused on managing forests for economic gain. These actions helped balance the goals of environmental preservation and business interests, leading to modern environmentalism.

In recent years, scholars like those cited by James Beattie have studied how the British Empire affected the environment. Researchers such as Beinart and Hughes note that the discovery and use of new plants were important in the 18th and 19th centuries. Building dams and irrigation systems helped increase farming productivity, though these projects were costly. The British moved plants, animals, and goods across the world, sometimes causing major changes to ecosystems. Imperial rule also encouraged new ways of thinking about nature and supported scientific research in botany and agriculture. Scholars now use the British Empire as a way to study how environmental and cultural networks connected different parts of the world.

Current practice

In the United States, the American Society for Environmental History was created in 1977. In Europe, the first institute focused on environmental history was established in 1991 at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1986, the Dutch organization Net Werk, which studies the history of the environment and hygiene, was founded. It publishes four newsletters each year. In the United Kingdom, the White Horse Press in Cambridge has published the journal Environment and History since 1995. This journal connects scholars in the humanities and biological sciences to develop long-term perspectives on modern environmental issues. A similar publication, Tijdschrift voor Ecologische Geschiedenis (Journal for Environmental History), is a shared effort between Flemish and Dutch researchers. It focuses on environmental history in the Netherlands and Belgium but also covers European topics. Each issue includes summaries in English, French, and German. In 1999, the journal was changed into a yearly publication. In Canada, the Network in Canadian History and Environment supports environmental history through workshops and online resources like its website and podcast.

Language differences make communication between European countries difficult. In April 1999, a meeting in Germany was held to solve these challenges and organize environmental history efforts in Europe. This meeting led to the founding of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) in 1999. Two years later, ESEH held its first international conference in St. Andrews, Scotland. Around 120 scholars attended, and 105 papers were presented on a wide range of environmental history topics. The conference showed that environmental history is a strong and growing field in Europe. Since then, ESEH has grown to over 400 members and hosted international conferences in 2003 and 2005. In 1999, the Centre for Environmental History was created at the University of Stirling. Some European universities now offer introductory and advanced courses in environmental history. These courses are available at the Universities of Nottingham, Stirling, and Dundee, and a Graduierten Kolleg was recently started at the University of Göttingen in Germany. In 2009, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) was established as a joint project between Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Deutsches Museum. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research supported this effort. The RCC is an international center for research and education in environmental humanities and social sciences. Its website, Environment & Society Portal (environmentandsociety.org), serves as an open-access digital archive and publication platform.

Related disciplines

Environmental history takes pride in connecting the arts and natural sciences, though science has more influence so far. A complete list of related subjects would be very long, and choosing some to highlight is challenging. Subjects often mentioned include historical geography, the history and philosophy of science, the history of technology, and climate science. In the area of biology, ecology and historical ecology are especially important, along with forestry, forest history, archaeology, and anthropology. When environmental history involves supporting the environment, it shares many ideas with environmentalism.

As the world becomes more connected and global trade affects how resources are shared, concerns about endless economic growth and human inequalities have led environmental history to find support in fields like ecological and environmental economics.

Environmental history has limited but important connections with sociology and the humanities, as these areas influence human behavior. This connection may explain why some traditional historians have not fully supported environmental history.

Issues

Environmental history is a subject with many active discussions. These include questions about what topics are most important, whether environmental advocacy might affect the fairness of historical research, and how to define professional standards in a field where many important works have been written by people not trained as historians. Other discussions focus on how much nature and human actions have shaped history, how well environmental history connects with other fields—especially traditional history—and how to address differences in how environmental history is viewed compared to other areas of study, such as those that focus on human culture and ideas.

Paul Warde believes that the wide range of topics in environmental history needs a shared set of questions and a central focus to guide research. He notes that some environmental history writing may not clearly show how human actions influence the environment and suggests that it should better serve environmental scientists, include ideas about risk, define what is meant by "environment" more clearly, and address how environmental history differs from other fields because it focuses more on physical factors than on human culture.

Environmental history often looks at the causes of today’s environmental problems, such as population growth, overuse of resources, climate change, pollution, loss of forests, industrial farming, species loss, resource depletion, invasive species, and urban growth. The idea that using renewable resources wisely is important has been discussed for a long time. In 1864, George Perkins Marsh warned that changes to the environment could later harm humans, a concept now called "enlightened self-interest." Richard Grove pointed out that governments will act to protect the environment only when their own economic interests are at risk.

It is unclear whether environmental history should support a moral or political goal. Strong feelings about environmental issues can sometimes make it hard to stay objective in historical research. While working with political groups may have risks for historians, accuracy and proper use of historical methods do not necessarily suffer from involvement in environmental issues. Environmental historians can reasonably expect their work to help shape policies.

A recent change in how environmental history is studied has focused more on inequality. Unequal power in areas like resources, industry, and politics has led to pollution and harm being concentrated in less powerful groups, both in different regions and within societies. Looking at the early environmental movement through this lens shows that early supporters often focused on protecting middle-class spaces and avoided the worst pollution effects in their own communities, while ignoring the struggles of less privileged people.

Groups with less economic and political power often lack the ability to take part in environmental efforts. Environmental history now highlights how the middle-class environmental movement has failed to support many communities. Research across different fields now sees historical inequality as a way to understand future environmental challenges, especially with climate change. The United Nations warns that a warmer planet will worsen environmental and other inequalities, particularly by increasing the harm experienced by disadvantaged groups, making them more vulnerable to climate effects, and reducing their ability to recover from damage. As a field that studies how social justice issues relate to environmental changes, environmental history naturally supports certain goals.

Stories in environmental history often follow a pattern called "declensionist," which means they describe a steady decline caused by human actions. This is similar to the idea of a "lost golden age," a concept that has appeared in human thinking for a long time.

Environmental history is sometimes criticized for being "presentist," meaning it may focus too much on today’s problems and apply them to the past. Critics argue that environmental history, which began in the late 20th century, is more about reacting to current issues than understanding past events on their own terms. This is linked to the idea of assigning blame, but it is more helpful to understand the values and goals of the time being studied to better explain causes and context.

Some environmental historians believe that the environment’s general conditions, such as the availability of resources, the layout of land and sea, and the presence of animals that can be domesticated, have made human culture possible and even influenced its direction. They argue that history is shaped by forces beyond human control. This idea is associated with American historians like Webb and Turner, and more recently with Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, where he explains how the presence of certain plants, animals, and disease-causing organisms has influenced the development of human societies. The belief that the environment, rather than human culture, determines history is called environmental determinism. At the opposite end is cultural determinism, which argues that human influence is so strong that the idea of nature existing without human culture is not meaningful.

Methodology

Environmental history is a field of study that examines how humans have interacted with the natural world over time. Scholars such as Donald Worster, Carolyn Merchant, William Cronon, and Ian Simmons have provided important guidance on how to study this subject. Worster identified three main areas of focus: the environment itself, the ways humans have affected the environment, and how humans have thought about the environment. These areas help students develop skills needed for the study. The tools used in environmental history include methods from both history and science, with a strong need to understand the language of natural science, especially ecology. Many experts agree that environmental history requires knowledge from various physical and social sciences, making it a subject that involves many different areas of study.

• Chakrabarti, Ranjan (ed), Does Environmental History Matter: Shikar, Subsistence, Sustenance and the Sciences (Kolkata: Readers Service, 2006)
• Chakrabarti, Ranjan (ed.), Situating Environmental History (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007)
• Cronon, William (ed), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995)
• Dunlap, Thomas R., Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
• Glacken, Clarence, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought From Ancient Times to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967)
• Griffiths, Tom and Libby Robin (eds.), Ecology and Empire: The Environmental History of Settler Societies (Keele: Keele University Press, 1997)
• Grove, Richard, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
• Headrick, Daniel, Humans Versus Nature: A Global Environmental History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)
• Hughes, J.D., An Environmental History of the World: Humankind's Changing Role in the Community of Life (Oxford: Routledge, 2001)
• Hughes, J.D., "Global Environmental History: The Long View," Globalizations, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2005, 293–208.
• LaFreniere, Gilbert F., The Decline of Nature: Environmental History and the Western Worldview (Academica Press, Bethesda, MD, 2007, ISBN 978-1933146409)
• MacKenzie, John M., Imperialism and the Natural World (Manchester University Press, 1990)
• McCormick, John, Reclaiming Paradise: The Global Environmental Movement (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989)
• Rajan, Ravi S., Modernizing Nature: Forestry and Imperial Eco-Development, 1800–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Redclift, Michael R., Frontier: Histories of Civil Society and Nature (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006)
• Stevis, Dimitris, "The Globalizations of the Environment," Globalizations, Vol. 2 No. 3, 2005, 323–334.
• Williams, Michael, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis. An Abridgement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)
• White, Richard, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Hill and Wang, 1996)
• Worster, Donald, Nature's Economy: A Study of Ecological Ideals (Cambridge University Press, 1977)
• Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle and Donald Theodore Sanders, Volcanoes in Human History, The Far-reaching Effects of Major Eruptions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0691118383)

Germinal works by region

In 2004, a special issue of the journal Environment and History (volume 10, issue 4) offered an overview of environmental history as studied in Africa, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, China, Europe, and other regions around the world. In 2006, J. Donald Hughes also provided a global summary of major works in environmental history literature.

• George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, edited by David Lowenthal (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965 [1864])
• Adams, Jonathan S. and Thomas McShane, The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation without Illusion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 266 pages; covers the years 1900 to the 1980s
• Anderson, David; Grove, Richard. Conservation in Africa: People, Policies & Practice (1988), 355 pages
• Bolaane, Maitseo. "Chiefs, Hunters & Adventurers: The Foundation of the Okavango/Moremi National Park, Botswana." Journal of Historical Geography 31.2 (April 2005): 241–259.
• Carruthers, Jane. "Africa: Histories, Ecologies, and Societies," Environment and History 10 (2004), pages 379–406;
• Cock, Jacklyn and Eddie Koch (eds.), Going Green: People, Politics, and the Environment in South Africa (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991)
• Dovers, Stephen, Ruth Edgecombe, and Bill Guest (eds.), South Africa's Environmental History: Cases and Comparisons (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003)
• Green Musselman, Elizabeth, "Plant Knowledge at the Cape: A Study in African and European Collaboration," International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 36, 2003, pages 367–392
• Jacobs, Nancy J., Environment, Power and Injustice: A South African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• Maathai, Wangari, Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (New York: Lantern Books, 2003)
• McCann, James, Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land: An Environmental History of Africa, 1800–1990 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999)
• Showers, Kate B. Imperial Gullies: Soil Erosion and Conservation in Lesotho (2005), 346 pages
• Steyn, Phia, "The lingering environmental impact of repressive governance: the environmental legacy of the apartheid-era for the new South Africa," Globalizations, 2#3 (2005), pages 391–403

• Pyne, S.J., The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica (University of Iowa Press, 1986).

• Dorsey, Kurkpatrick. The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1998)
• Loo, Tina. States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006)
• MacDowell, Laurel Sefton. Environmental History of Canada (UBC Press, 2012) excerpt

• Parr, Joy. Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953–2003 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010)
• Wynn, Graeme. Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007)

• Allitt, Patrick. A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (2014), wide-ranging scholarly history since 1950s excerpt
• Andrews, Richard N.L., Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy (Yale University Press, 1999)
• Bates, J. Leonard. "Fulfilling American Democracy: The Conservation Movement, 1907 to 1921," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, (1957) 44#1 pages 29–57. in JSTOR
• Browning, Judkin and Timothy Silver. An Environmental History of the Civil War (2020) online review
• Brinkley, Douglas G. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (2009) excerpt and text search
• Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring (Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1962)
• Cawley, R. McGreggor. Federal Land, Western Anger: The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental Politics (1993), on conservatives
• Cronon, William, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983)
• Cronon, William, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991)
• Dant, Sara. Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West (2013), 346 pages
• Steyn, Phia, "The lingering environmental impact of repressive governance: the environmental legacy of the apartheid-era for the new South Africa," Globalizations, 2#3 (2005), pages 391–403

• Pyne, S.J., The Ice: A Journey to Antarctica (University of Iowa Press, 1986).

• Dorsey, Kurkpatrick. The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1998)
• Loo, Tina. States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006)
• MacDowell, Laurel Sefton. *Environmental History

Future

Environmental history, like other areas of history, aims to help people learn from the past to make better choices for the future. By studying history, people can understand environmental problems and make better decisions about how to protect the environment.

This field brings together experts from many different areas of study. It helps explain environmental issues by looking at how history has shaped them. As people become more concerned about the environment, environmental history continues to focus on how humans affect the planet. Important topics include population growth, climate change, disagreements about environmental rules, species disappearing, non-native plants and animals harming ecosystems, the effects of technology like biotechnology, and the limited availability of resources such as energy, water, and materials.

Hughes says that environmental historians will need to explain how the global economy affects the environment. Some international organizations may push for "sustainable development," but this idea sometimes ignores the need to limit economic growth. Hughes also points out that environmental history is not widely studied in countries that strongly oppose Western ideas.

Michael Bess describes a process called "artificialization," where powerful technologies have changed the world since the 1700s, especially after 1945. These changes could greatly affect both the natural world and human society in the coming years. Environmental historians can help people understand the strong influence of human-made changes on the planet.

In this context, environmental history provides important information. It helps explain how past events led to today's environmental challenges, shows examples of past problems and solutions, and analyzes the forces that need to be addressed. As William Cronon said, understanding the past and creating new values for the future are essential for finding ways for humans to live successfully within the limits of the environment and its resources.

Related journals

Key journals in this field include:

• Environment and History
• Environmental History, published together by the American Society for Environmental History and Forest History Society
• Global Environment: A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences
• International Review of Environmental History