The World’s Fair has a 3-part interview with Aaron Sachs, author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. The interview starts with The Humboldt Current : Science, Adventure, and Environmentalism with author Aaron Sachs. Sachs’ book was recently reviewed (not very positively) in The Journal of American History.
[link from Environmental History News]
American Society for Environmental History 2008 Annual Meeting
Call for Papers and Posters
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: JULY 1, 2007
“Agents of Change: People, Climate, and Places through Time”
Boise, Idaho March 12 – 16, 2008
The program committee for the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History invites panel and poster proposals for its March 2008 meeting in Boise, Idaho. Proposals may address any area of environmental history, but in keeping with the conference themes we solicit submissions examining the intersecting roles of people, climate, and place in environmental history. The conference site is one of the nation’s most rapidly growing cities. Set in the Great Basin desert on the fringe of the Rocky Mountains, Boise has long been shaped by booster dreams of a desert transformed through water works. Today, Boise, like many places, is facing profound changes as global climate and economic trends intersect with its regional demography and environment. The committee encourages panel and poster proposals that focus on the following broad themes:
Agents of Change—Contemporary science and politics have forced public recognition of the importance of natural agents in human affairs, especially climate, while forcing reconsideration of the status of these agents as “natural”. Historians, geographers, and historical ecologists can help advance and refine these perspectives. We encourage submissions from researchers that consider these agents, and whose work spans historical periods, from the modern to the medieval or ancient.
Region and Place— Environmental historians are increasingly questioning conventional views of regions and regionality, through research on places that transcend national boundaries and traditionally-defined regions, and by considering people—including immigrant, diasporic, and refugee communities—as “place makers.” We encourage proposals that rethink region and place in light of dynamic climatic, demographic, economic, or political processes.
Shifting Boundaries – Boise sits amid volatile boundaries: between mountains and desert, public land and private land, urban and rural communities. Similarly, environmental history encompasses multiple methods and disciplines. We encourage proposals that examine how spatial relationships, ecological processes, and intellectual boundaries have shaped our understanding of change, and our views of our own scholarly practices.
The committee strongly prefers complete panel proposals rather than individual papers. Limit panels to three papers (commentator optional) or four papers and no commentator. Plan the length of introductions, presentations, and comments so that your panel leaves ½ hour for discussion. Participants may only present one formal paper, but they may also engage in roundtable, chairing, or comment duties.
To submit your panel or poster proposal, go to ASEH’s website (www.aseh.net) and click on “Submit Session Proposals.”
Should you have questions, please contact any member of the program committee:
The March 2007 issue of the Journal of Modern History is now available. Here are the three main articles (links to UChicago Press full-text):
Talbot Imlay, Democracy and War: Political Regime, Industrial Relations, and Economic Preparations for War in France and Britain up to 1940
Josie McLellan, State Socialist Bodies: East German Nudism from Ban to Boom
Margaret Lavinia Anderson, “Down in Turkey, far away”: Human Rights, the Armenian Massacres, and Orientalism in Wilhelmine Germany
I also want to draw your attention to the two review articles (links again to UChicago Press full-text):
Caroline Ford, Nature’s Fortunes: New Directions in the Writing of European Environmental History
Padraic Kenney, After the Blank Spots Are Filled: Recent Perspectives on Modern Poland
From H-Net Announcements:
The editors of French Historical Studies seek articles for a special issue on New Perspectives on French Environmental History. Articles on research topics covering all chronological periods and all areas within environmental history are welcome. Among other possibilities, we invite articles treating the following topics:
• The Annales school and environmental history in France
• The proper geographical parameters for French environmental history: locales, regions, the nation-state, Europe, French colonial empires
• Urban, rural, and maritime environments
• Eco-logics and contradictions in peasant society
• Environmental thought and nature writing
• Varieties of environmentalism and green politics
• War and the environment
• The environmental consequences of tourism
• Environmental justice
Queries regarding submissions and all other matters should be addressed to the guest editors, Caroline Ford (cford@history.ucla.edu) and Tamara Whited (twhited@iup.edu). Articles may be either in English or in French but must conform to French Historical Studies style (see http://fhs.ucdavis.edu/style/shtml for details) and must be accompanied by abstracts in both languages. Papers should be between 8,000 and 10,000 words (up to but not longer than 15,000 words including notes). For the inclusion of illustrations written permission must be obtained from the relevant persons or institutions for print and on-line publication.
Manuscripts can be sent by post or electronically. After July 1, 2007, they should be sent to Jessica Namakkal, Managing Assistant, French Historical Studies, Department of History, University of Minnesota-twin cities, 614 Social Sciences Building, 267 19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 We encourage, but do not require, electronic submission of manuscripts. Manuscripts submitted electronically should be sent in MS Word or Rich Text Format (RTF). The deadline for submissions is October 1, 2007.
The September 2006 issue of Isis features a section revisiting Carolyn Merchant’s 1980 book The Death of Nature (WorldCat link). The articles are (links are to the abstracts):
