Environmental History

framework · history · philosophical-tradition

Historical approach foregrounding human-environment interaction as a central driver of historical change, associated with Crosby and Worster.

Environmental History is the historiographical approach foregrounding human-environment interaction as a central driver of historical change, examining how landscapes, climates, ecosystems, and non-human species have shaped and been shaped by human societies. The field emerged in the United States in the 1970s with Donald Worster (Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s 1979), William Cronon (Changes in the Land 1983), and Carolyn Merchant (The Death of Nature 1980), with earlier intellectual antecedents in Annales-school geography (Braudel's Mediterranean) and Alfred Crosby's foundational The Columbian Exchange (1972) and Ecological Imperialism (1986). The American Society for Environmental History (founded 1976) and the journal Environmental History (founded 1996) institutionalized the field. International extensions include European environmental history (Verena Winiwarter, Frank Uekötter), Asian environmental history (Mark Elvin), and increasing global-environmental-history work integrating climate history, history of disease, and the anthropocene framework.

Originators

Donald Worster (foundational US, Dust Bowl 1979); William Cronon (Changes in the Land 1983); Carolyn Merchant (The Death of Nature 1980); Alfred Crosby (foundational ecological-history work, Columbian Exchange 1972, Ecological Imperialism 1986); Annales antecedents (Braudel's Mediterranean 1949); intellectual roots in Frederick Jackson Turner, J.B. Jackson, and geographic-historical traditions high

Year / Decade

1949 (Braudel antecedent); 1972 (Crosby's Columbian Exchange); 1976 (ASEH founded); 1979-1983 (foundational US texts) high

Primary sources

Crosby, A.W. (1972). The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Worster, D. (1979). Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, Cronon, W. (1983). Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, Merchant, C. (1980). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution high

Core components

Three principal modes (Worster's framework): the natural environment itself
modes of production and economy
cultural attitudes toward nature
Climate history: integration of paleoclimatology with historical analysis
Disease and ecological history: Crosby's Columbian Exchange framework, William McNeill's Plagues and Peoples (1976)
Wilderness, conservation, and environmentalism as historical subjects (Cronon's substantial subsequent work)
Indigenous environmental knowledge and management
Animal history and multispecies historiography (Erica Fudge, Susan Nance, Sandra Swart)
Environmental justice history (Andrew Hurley, Robert Bullard)
Anthropocene framework: Earth-system effects of human activity as historical subject

Primary use case

Foundational approach for environmental history, climate history, history of agriculture, and history of disease; research framework for energy history, urban environmental history, and history of conservation and environmentalism; intellectual foundation for anthropocene studies, environmental humanities, and multispecies history; academic reference in adjacent fields including environmental studies, geography, and ecology; engagement with contemporary climate, biodiversity, and environmental-justice debates; pedagogical canon in graduate environmental-history programs.

Common criticisms

Environmental history has been substantially debated within the tradition — the Cronon-Worster debate over wilderness (Cronon's 'The Trouble with Wilderness' 1995 challenged the wilderness-construct as ideologically loaded, generating substantial debate including Worster's response and the broader 'wilderness debate' literature) exemplifies methodological tensions
the field's US origin produced early empirical concentration on North American history that has limited the field's global representativeness, with European, Asian, African, and Latin American environmental historiographies developing subsequently with substantial methodological diversity
the question of how to handle non-human agency historically (does climate 'cause'? do animals 'act'?) produces ongoing methodological debate, with actor-network-theoretical approaches (Bruno Latour) offering one framework
integration with mainstream historiography has been uneven, with environmental history sometimes treated as specialist subfield rather than methodologically transformative
the anthropocene framework has produced internal debate (Eileen Crist's critique, Donna Haraway's 'Chthulucene' alternative) about whether the framing universalizes responsibility for ecological crisis or appropriately distinguishes capitalist, colonial, and democratic actors
cross-disciplinary integration with paleoclimatology and ecology faces methodological-translation challenges
the field's engagement with environmental policy and politics produces ongoing objectivity debates.

Lineage

Child of: Annales School
Siblings: Big History, Microhistory
Derived from: Annales School