Uranium isotopes as proxies of the environmental history of the Lake Baikal watershed (East Siberia) during the past 150ka

This essay attempts to counter the scarcity of efforts to address issues of natural resource extraction and environmental exploitation in public history forums. Focused on western Pennsylvania, it argues that the history of industrial development and its deleterious environmental impacts demands a regional vision that not only frames these stories within the ideological and economic context of the past, but also challenges residents and visitors to consider this history in light of the related environmental concerns of our own time. The essay explores some of the difficult issues faced by public historians and practitioners as they seek to produce public environmental histories that do not elude opportunities to link past and present in meaningful ways.

Download Full-text

Gariwerd

10.1071/9781486307692 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Benjamin Wilkie

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Environmental History ◽

19Th Century ◽

National Park ◽

Ecological Significance ◽

Left Behind ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

Western Victoria ◽

The 19Th Century

People have been visiting and living in the Victorian Grampians, also known as Gariwerd, for thousands of generations. They have both witnessed and caused vast environmental transformations in and around the ranges. Gariwerd: An Environmental History of the Grampians explores the geological and ecological significance of the mountains and combines research from across disciplines to tell the story of how humans and the environment have interacted, and how the ways people have thought about the environments of the ranges have changed through time. In this new account, historian Benjamin Wilkie examines how Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali people and their ancestors lived in and around the mountains, how they managed the land and natural resources, and what kinds of archaeological evidence they have left behind over the past 20 000 years. He explores the history of European colonisation in the area from the middle of the 19th century and considers the effects of this on both the first people of Gariwerd and the environments of the ranges and their surrounding plains in western Victoria. The book covers the rise of science, industry and tourism in the mountains, and traces the eventual declaration of the Grampians National Park in 1984. Finally, it examines more recent debates about the past, present and future of the park, including over its significant Indigenous history and heritage.

Download Full-text

The World the Bedouin Lived in: Climate, Migration and Politics in the Early Modern Arab East

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient ◽

10.1163/15685209-12341372 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 58 (1-2) ◽

pp. 21-55

Author(s):

Astrid Meier ◽

Tariq Tell

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Environmental History ◽

The Past ◽

Global Environmental ◽

The Social ◽

The World ◽

History Of ◽

Societal Level ◽

The Individual ◽

Marginal Zones

Environmental history provides a perspective from which we can deepen our understanding of the past because it examines the relationships of people with their material surroundings and the effects of those relationships on the individual as well as the societal level. It is a perspective that holds particular promise for the social and political history of arid and marginal zones, as it contributes to our understanding of the reason some groups are more successful than others in coping with the same environmental stresses. Historians working on the early modern Arab East have only recently engaged with the lively field of global environmental history. After presenting a brief overview of some strands of this research, this article illustrates the potential of this approach by looking closely at a series of conflicts involving Bedouin and other power groups in the southern parts of Bilād al-Shām around the middle of the eighteenth century.

Download Full-text

Sedimentary evolution and environmental history of L ake V an ( T urkey) over the past 600 000 years

Sedimentology ◽

10.1111/sed.12118 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 61 (6) ◽

pp. 1830-1861 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

Mona Stockhecke ◽

Michael Sturm ◽

Irene Brunner ◽

Hans‐Ulrich Schmincke ◽

Mari Sumita ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

The Past ◽

Sedimentary Evolution ◽

History Of

Download Full-text

Ka Mua, Ka Muri-Walking Backwards into the Future: An Environmental History of the South Wairarapa Region 1984-2016

10.26686/wgtn.17067659 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Eleanor Jane Rainford

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Historical Context ◽

The South ◽

Neoliberal Reform ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

History Of ◽

Political Economic ◽

The Relationship ◽

History Of The South

<p>‘Ka mua, ka muri’, Walking backwards into the future, is a Māori proverb that aptly describes the findings of this thesis. That we should look to the past to inform the future is arguably the purpose of history, yet we have to walk back far enough. Tracing back from the present, this thesis will address what has driven political, economic, environmental and social change within the South Wairarapa region from 1984 to the present day. The region has experienced significant changes to its physical and social environment over the past thirty years. Many modern historians have attributed the key changes of this period, such as agricultural intensification, diversification, rising unemployment and environmental degradation, to the economic re-structuring of the Fourth Labour Government. This thesis will argue that these changes, and neoliberal reform itself, are consequent of much longer historiographical trends. Examination of the historical context and legacies of the intensification of dairy farming, rise of the viticulture industry, and the relationship between Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne o Wairarapa and their whenua, reveals complexities in the history of the region that histories of neoliberal change commonly conceal. The identification of these long running historiographical trends aides understanding of the historical context in which neoliberal reform occurred, and provides alternative narratives for the changes that have occurred over the past thirty years. Furthermore, it suggests alternative trajectories for how viticulture, agriculture and Te Ao Māori may walk into the future.</p>

Download Full-text

Ka Mua, Ka Muri-Walking Backwards into the Future: An Environmental History of the South Wairarapa Region 1984-2016

10.26686/wgtn.17067659.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Eleanor Jane Rainford

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Historical Context ◽

The South ◽

Neoliberal Reform ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

History Of ◽

Political Economic ◽

The Relationship ◽

History Of The South

<p>‘Ka mua, ka muri’, Walking backwards into the future, is a Māori proverb that aptly describes the findings of this thesis. That we should look to the past to inform the future is arguably the purpose of history, yet we have to walk back far enough. Tracing back from the present, this thesis will address what has driven political, economic, environmental and social change within the South Wairarapa region from 1984 to the present day. The region has experienced significant changes to its physical and social environment over the past thirty years. Many modern historians have attributed the key changes of this period, such as agricultural intensification, diversification, rising unemployment and environmental degradation, to the economic re-structuring of the Fourth Labour Government. This thesis will argue that these changes, and neoliberal reform itself, are consequent of much longer historiographical trends. Examination of the historical context and legacies of the intensification of dairy farming, rise of the viticulture industry, and the relationship between Ngāti Kahungunu and Rangitāne o Wairarapa and their whenua, reveals complexities in the history of the region that histories of neoliberal change commonly conceal. The identification of these long running historiographical trends aides understanding of the historical context in which neoliberal reform occurred, and provides alternative narratives for the changes that have occurred over the past thirty years. Furthermore, it suggests alternative trajectories for how viticulture, agriculture and Te Ao Māori may walk into the future.</p>

Download Full-text

A palaeobiogeographic model for biotic diversification within Amazonia over the past three million years

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2011.1120 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 279 (1729) ◽

pp. 681-689 ◽

Cited By ~ 216

Author(s):

Camila C. Ribas ◽

Alexandre Aleixo ◽

Afonso C. R. Nogueira ◽

Cristina Y. Miyaki ◽

Joel Cracraft

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Direct Evidence ◽

Drainage System ◽

Geological Evidence ◽

The Past ◽

High Species Diversity ◽

Areas Of Endemism ◽

History Of ◽

Major River ◽

Glacial Climate

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain high species diversity in Amazonia, but few generalizations have emerged. In part, this has arisen from the scarcity of rigorous tests for mechanisms promoting speciation, and from major uncertainties about palaeogeographic events and their spatial and temporal associations with diversification. Here, we investigate the environmental history of Amazonia using a phylogenetic and biogeographic analysis of trumpeters (Aves: Psophia ), which are represented by species in each of the vertebrate areas of endemism. Their relationships reveal an unforeseen ‘complete’ time-slice of Amazonian diversification over the past 3.0 Myr. We employ this temporally calibrated phylogeny to test competing palaeogeographic hypotheses. Our results are consistent with the establishment of the current Amazonian drainage system at approximately 3.0–2.0 Ma and predict the temporal pattern of major river formation over Plio-Pleistocene times. We propose a palaeobiogeographic model for the last 3.0 Myr of Amazonian history that has implications for understanding patterns of endemism, the temporal history of Amazonian diversification and mechanisms promoting speciation. The history of Psophia , in combination with new geological evidence, provides the strongest direct evidence supporting a role for river dynamics in Amazonian diversification, and the absence of such a role for glacial climate cycles and refugia.

Download Full-text

The Interplay of American Political Culture and Public Policy: The Sacramento River as a Case Study

Journal of Policy History ◽

10.1017/s0898030600004577 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 1-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Robert Kelley

Keyword(s):

Political Culture ◽

Environmental History ◽

The United States ◽

Two Dimensions ◽

American Political Culture ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

National Life

Historians of the United States have learned much in the past twenty years about the history of what is now called its political culture, and about its environmental history.1 These two dimensions of national life, however, are rarely, if ever, looked at together. The result is that we little understand how powerfully environmental policy is influenced not simply by everyday politics—of that we know abundantly—but by the long-term political mentalities of the Democrats and the Republicans, mentalities which originate not in abstract theorizing, but which grow up naturally within the cultural worlds to be found among the distinctive groups of peoples who line up within one party or the other and remain there, generation after generation. What I propose here is to put political culture and natural resource management history together and see what happens.

Download Full-text

Environmental History

Rural History ◽

10.1017/s0956793300000996 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 97-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Linda Merricks

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Historical Ecology ◽

Cultural Knowledge ◽

Political Movements ◽

The Past ◽

The Social ◽

Present Decade ◽

History Of ◽

The Impact ◽

Second World

A cursory examination of publishers’ catalogues reveals a number of titles like Environmental History, Green History and An Environmental History of Britain which suggest an upsurge of interest in what has come to be called ‘environmental history’. This weight of scholarship suggests that demands for the ‘greening of history’, or for more studies of the impact of human actions on the countryside, which have been made throughout the present decade, have been answered. It is worth noting the shift of title from ‘Green’ to ‘Environmental’. ‘Green’ is increasingly attached to the political movements and social groups concerned with environmental issues and even, in the case of the German Greens, to political parties whose concerns include ecology as only one of a number of interests. ‘Environmental’ has a much broader range, but, as the titles below demonstrate, this is by no means an absolute distinction. Closer consideration of many of these works reveals that although ‘History’ appears in many titles, the books are actually written by archaeologists, by sociologists, by political theorists, by Green activists and, most frequently, by geographers - all with ‘historical’ appended to their discipline. The Social Construction of the Past is a collection of essays from the Second World Archaeological Conference; Environmentalism proves to be ‘the view from Anthropology’ but contains at least one essay which appears to be a model of what environmental history could be. Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing Landscapes, rather confusingly, has chapters on historical transformations and a discussion of the ‘history’ in historical ecology. This is perhaps not surprising. History has always prided itself on interdisciplinarity and on its universal appeal. The usual justifications for undergraduate history begin from the premise that a knowledge of one's own history is necessary for any understanding of society, and that history has so many variations that there is bound to be some congenial corner for anyone interested in the past. What is still lacking, however, is British environmental history, written by historians.

Download Full-text

DOLI: TRANSLATING AN AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF LOSS IN THE SANGHA RIVER BASIN OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853700007702 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 373-394 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

TAMARA GILES-VERNICK

Keyword(s):

Environmental History ◽

Resource Use ◽

Central African Republic ◽

Environmental Knowledge ◽

Environmental Interventions ◽

Beliefs And Practices ◽

The Past ◽

Equatorial Africa ◽

Complex Dimensions ◽

History Of

This essay is about a conceptual category of historical and environmental knowledge and about how a particular group of Africans use that category to understand and debate change. It is, in effect, an exercise in translation. In the middle and upper Sangha basin forests of the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) and Cameroon, Mpiemu speakers have articulated a broad category, doli, through which they express, debate and make claims of truth about the past and present. Glossing doli as ‘history’ does little justice to the richly complex dimensions of this category, for doli encompasses a multitude of relationships to the past. It can refer to a distant unchanging past, as well as to the knowledge, beliefs and practices associated with that past. Mpiemu people hold up the knowledge, beliefs and practices as an idealized framework to guide their behavior toward one another and their uses of fields, forests, rivers and streams. But doli can also describe and frame the accumulated experiences – identifiable events, people and places – of elderly people. In all of these expressions about the past, Mpiemu use idioms linking persons and their environments, those of cords and vines and of mobility (wandering) and stasis (sitting), to articulate doli's central aim of ‘leaving a person behind’. Tracing doli's different meanings, genres and aims can illuminate how the category has changed over the twentieth century, how Mpiemu have interpreted environmental interventions in the Sangha basin, and why they have engaged in conflicts over their entitlement to valued forest resources. Hence, it offers insights into why people use natural resources as they do and provides an alternative to exclusively materialist explanations for conflicts over resource use.

Download Full-text