Forest History Society Research Articles

Previous articleNext article FreeNote from the EditorsMark Hersey, Stephen Brain, and Sarah Stanford-McIntyreMark Hersey Search for more articles by this author , Stephen Brain Search for more articles by this author , and Sarah Stanford-McIntyre Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMuch has changed about the practice of environmental history since it emerged as a self-conscious discipline in the last decades of the twentieth century. As it expanded in influence, it pushed beyond the boundaries of North America, influencing historiographies around the world, while the traditions of other continents shaped the field’s approaches to, understanding of, and indeed the very questions it asks about the historical relationships of people to the other-than-human world. At the same time, however, even as methodologies have evolved, the approaches of the earliest environmental historians continue to exert a strong appeal. This issue captures both the continued influence of the founding generation of environmental historians and the impressive methodological and geographical diversity that has come to mark the field.This issue begins with a memorial of Angus Wright, whose pioneering work helped move Latin American environmental history into the main currents of the broader field. The two essays that follow—a reflection by Peter Alagona, Mark Carey, and Adrian Howkins and an article by Philip Slavin—reflect the legacies of the field’s early efforts to engage with science. In their appeal to environmental historians to seriously consider (and esteem) coauthorship, Alagona, Carey, and Howkins encourage environmental historians not only to rekindle the relationship with science that animated many of the field’s foundational works, but to push the relationship further through enhanced collaboration with scientists. Slavin, who has frequently partnered across disciplines in precisely the way the reflection asks, brings new scientific discoveries to bear to shed light on the origins of the Black Death. Much as William McNeill did in the 1970s, Slavin seeks to leverage cutting-edge scientific techniques not merely to answer long-standing questions but to open new lines of inquiry.Articles by Viktor Pal and Michal Pospiszyl set their sights on countries heretofore little studied by environmental historians. Pal’s piece about recycling in socialist Hungary draws attention to the way that Cold War political dynamics created new spaces for environmental protection while simultaneously undermining those very efforts. Pospiszyl’s essay takes as its subject early modern Poland—a country just beginning to develop a domestic cohort of environmental historians—and, like Pal, shows how foreign ideas about environmental management blended with domestic politics to reshape both the actual and the political landscape.Moving back across the Atlantic to North America, William Knight and Kiethen Sutherland explore failed post–World War II experiments to introduce new species of salmon to northern Ontario. While previous historians have noted the unintended outcome of those experiments (in the inadvertent introduction of pink salmon to the Great Lakes), Knight and Sutherland turn the focus to the experiments themselves, highlighting the troubling colonial assumptions that undergirded them.The book reviews in this issue continue to showcase the global nature of the field and the diversity of approaches in it, offering assessments of titles that range from microhistories to sweeping systemic accounts. As is often the case, many reviewers commented upon the utility of the books under consideration for the undergraduate classroom.We also want to formally welcome Fraser Livingston, a newly minted PhD whose research centers on the longleaf pine forests of the southeastern United States, to the editorial team as the journal’s social media coordinator. We’re eager to work with him to call attention not only to the work of the journal but to that of environmental historians around the world.By the time this journal appears in print, the ASEH will have met in Boston for its 2023 meeting, and many of the journal’s readers will be preparing for conferences in places as far flung as Osogbo, Nigeria; Melbourne, Australia; Michoacán, Mexico; and Bern, Switzerland. We encourage you, as always, to look for us (or a member of our editorial board) there. We’re always happy to hear about your projects and do what we can to foster the growth of the field around the world. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ahead of Print Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 28Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723891 Views: 28Total views on this site HistoryPublished online March 21, 2023 © 2023 Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Previous articleNext article FreeIntroductionStephen Brain, Mark D. Hersey, and Sarah Stanford-McIntyreStephen Brain Search for more articles by this author , Mark D. Hersey Search for more articles by this author , and Sarah Stanford-McIntyre Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn recent years, the world has seemed to careen from one crisis to another, with little time to recover from the last before the next begins. Electoral conflicts, public health emergencies, economic upheavals, and geopolitical cataclysms have followed each other or overlapped with one another, sometimes with no reprieve. Few of us have much influence on the trajectory of these histories-in-the-making, but one way to cope with a potential sense of overwhelm is through greater understanding. The essays in this issue work to that end by providing insight into many of the challenges facing us today, including climate change, political tumult, commodity shocks, and epidemics.The first feature in this issue is a set of reflections centered on the concept of political realignment and shifting public mores, analyzing the rise of right-wing populist movements around the world and their environmental policies. Interested in the consequences of this important and widespread political phenomenon, we reached out to six environmental historians who study countries with strong right-wing populist political parties and asked them to discuss the place of environmentalism (if any) in the ascent of those parties to prominence. Their responses are thought-provoking and nuanced—sometimes charged with emotion, but also grounded in historical perspective and historiographical context.Each of the monographic articles addresses, in one form or another, the concept of disorienting environmental change and human reactions to those changes. Kelly Enright’s essay about the disappearance of Franklinia alatamaha offers a fresh look at the concept of extinction, not only by turning our attention away from animals and toward plants but by illustrating the lengths that naturalists would go to in search of a vanished member of the native biota that continued to exist in the wild only in their imaginations. Samuël Coghe’s essay visits sub-Saharan Africa and describes the conclusion of a long and draining livestock epidemic and the events that ensued as scientists and animal breeders worked to limit the effect of Trypanosomiasis in the development of a new cattle frontier. Sky Michael Johnston’s contribution recounts the reaction of religious leaders and the lay public to the Little Ice Age, and shows how faith and perceptions of climate change shaped one another. Emily Brownell takes up the theme of economic disruption and explores how government officials and ordinary people responded to the oil crisis in Tanzania the late 1970s by developing new commodity flows and new partnerships. Finally, Isacar Bolaños takes up the theme of imperial competition and decline by surveying the attempts of French hydrological engineers to leverage their expertise into imperial influence. Together, these essays exploring histories of Africa, North America, Europe, and the Middle East show humans reckoning with, causing, or seeking to leverage environmental transformations.Looking beyond the monographic articles, we are pleased to report that the journal’s subsections are better positioned than they have been in some time. Although the journal will go to press without a Gallery essay for the second time since the start of the pandemic, the book review section has returned to its former strength. The editors of that subsection are excited by the range and breadth of books reviewed in this issue, which collectively highlight the capacious scope and bright future of the discipline. That the book review section is once again on firm footing is due in no small part to the tireless work of Margaret Cook, who will be stepping down as coeditor, as of this issue. While her hard work, humor, and dedication will be missed, we are excited to welcome Matthew Himel as the coeditor of the book reviews. Matthew has already been involved with the journal as its social media coordinator and will bring this outreach experience to the role.The publication of this issue also marks the conclusion of our first year with the University of Chicago Press. We’d like to express our gratitude to the UCP team for their enthusiastic support during the transition, as well as for their efforts to make the journal more visually appealing and intellectually stimulating. We are very encouraged about the future of the partnership, and we look forward to many years of productive cooperation. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 27, Number 4October 2022 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 187Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721439 Views: 187Total views on this site HistoryPublished online October 06, 2022 © 2022 Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Forest History Society Research Articles

Related Topics

Articles published on Forest History Society

Note from the Editors

Front Matter

Front Cover

:From the Mountains to the Sea: Protecting Nature in Postwar New Hampshire

:From Environmental Loss to Resistance: Infrastructure and the Struggle for Justice in North America

:Coastal Metropolis: Environmental History of Modern New York City

:Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

Note from the Editors

In Memoriam: Angus L. Wright

Narrative, Place, and Environmental Justice

New Scholarship

Reconciling Sites of Memory and Loss: Place, a Poetics of Geology, and the Implicated Writer

:Razing Kids: Youth, Environment, and the Postwar American West

:The Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests

:Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime against Humanity and Nature

:Death Is All around Us: Corpses, Chaos, and Public Health in Porfirian Mexico City

:Environment and Urbanization in Modern Italy

:The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm

New Scholarship

Introduction

Lead the way for us

Editage

Paperpal

R Discovery

Mind the Graph

Forest History Society Research Articles

Related Topics

Articles published on Forest History Society

Note from the Editors

Front Matter

Front Cover

:From the Mountains to the Sea: Protecting Nature in Postwar New Hampshire

:From Environmental Loss to Resistance: Infrastructure and the Struggle for Justice in North America

:Coastal Metropolis: Environmental History of Modern New York City

:Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

Note from the Editors

In Memoriam: Angus L. Wright

Narrative, Place, and Environmental Justice

New Scholarship

Reconciling Sites of Memory and Loss: Place, a Poetics of Geology, and the Implicated Writer

:Razing Kids: Youth, Environment, and the Postwar American West

:The Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests

:Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime against Humanity and Nature

:Death Is All around Us: Corpses, Chaos, and Public Health in Porfirian Mexico City

:Environment and Urbanization in Modern Italy

:The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm

New Scholarship

Introduction