Environmental History: Profile of a Developing Field

Abstract

IN THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, and especially in the last ten years, environmental history in the United States has become a recognized field with a strong core of both individual and institutional support. An increasing number of historians are specializing in it. Graduate students can now study with prominent environmental historians in Ph.D. programs at several institutions and can earn a doctorate in the field. The number of academic conferences focused on environmental studies and history have proliferated in the 1990s. Environmental historians have also had their own organization, the American Society for Environmental History, and journal, the Environmental History Review (recently merged with Forest and Conservation History into a new journal, Environmental History, with a combined subscription list of about 2,000), since the mid1970s. Attendance at the biennial ASEH meeting continues to grow. Many history departments in American universities now also offer introductory-level courses in the field. History departments in the West, where the field has deeper roots, have long had courses on the books in environmental history, but universities in other regions are now also offering courses. Many also have environmental studies programs or even separate institutes or colleges that include environmental history as part of their curriculum. Some departments and programs are also now offering advanced courses that often cross disciplinary, as well as na-