Environmental History

 

Definition:

The study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasizing the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa.

Description:

Environmental history is the effects humans and nature have on one another that can be seen in climate change for one example. The environment its self goes through Cycles of warm and cool times however, human activity has increased the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.  From here coastal regions are washed away and with them the livelihoods and homes of millions. Many creatures also lose their niche as a result. “Love Canal” an incident in New York where residents where exposed to hazardous waste from a near trash dump leading to the evacuation of the community(Gibbs 609). Perhaps most well known but it is not only a case of past environmental abuses carrying into the everyday lives of people but serves as a warning against future abuses. People have been recording there surroundings for a long time and Native peoples such as the Hawaiians pass the stories down as a part of oral history.Perhaps not as statistically reliant but large storms and catastrophic events can still be discerned and seen as something to fear, respect, and expect to happen again.Monks in Ireland have been writing poems about nature since the 9th century from a third persons point of view. Buddhist and Shinto monks wrote of the relations with the earth on an emotional level over a thousand years ago (Smout, 219).

Cronan’s Principals

 

1. All human History has a natural context
2. Neither nature/culture is static
3. all environmental knowledge is culturally constructed
4. Historical wisdom comes in the form of parables, not policy, recommendations or certainties.

 

 

 

Further Readings Bibliography

Gibbs,Louis . American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau , From Love Canal / My Story. Literature Classics, 2008. pg 609

Smout, T. C. Exploring Environmental History: Selected Essays. Edinburgh University Press, 2011. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r2d6q.pg 219

Cronon, William. The Uses of Environmental History: Environmental History Review, Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History, Vol. 17. No. 3. pg 14