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A Field on Fire

A Field on Fire

The Future of Environmental History

Edited by Mark D. Hersey and Ted Steinberg

Contributions by Mark D. Hersey, Ted Steinberg, Marco Armiero, Kevin C. Armitage, Brian C. Black, Lisa M. Brady, Karl Boyd Brooks, Robert Wellman Campbell, Brian Allen Drake, Sterling Evans, Sara M. Gregg, Shen Hou, Neil M. Maher, Christof Mauch, Daniel T. Rodgers, Adam Rome, Edmund Russell, Mikko Saikku and Frank Zelko

328 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 1.20 in, 13 B&W figures - 4 maps

Hardcover
9780817320010
Published: January 2019

$49.95

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eBook
9780817392086
Published: January 2019

$49.95

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Description
Contents
Authors

A frank and engaging exploration of the burgeoning academic field of environmental history

Inspired by the pioneering work of preeminent environmental historian Donald Worster, the contributors to A Field on Fire: The Future of Environmental History reflect on the past and future of this discipline. Featuring wide-ranging essays by leading environmental historians from the United States, Europe, and China, the collection challenges scholars to rethink some of their orthodoxies, inviting them to approach familiar stories from new angles, to integrate new methodologies, and to think creatively about the questions this field is well positioned to answer.

Worster’s groundbreaking research serves as the organizational framework for the collection. Editors Mark D. Hersey and Ted Steinberg have arranged the book into three sections corresponding to the primary concerns of Worster’s influential scholarship: the problem of natural limits, the transnational nature of environmental issues, and the question of method. Under the heading “Facing Limits,” five essays explore the inherent tensions between democracy, technology, capitalism, and the environment. The “Crossing Borders” section underscores the ways in which environmental history moves easily across national and disciplinary boundaries. Finally, “Doing Environmental History” invokes Worster’s work as an essayist by offering self-conscious reflections about the practice and purpose of environmental history.

The essays aim to provoke a discussion on the future of the field, pointing to untapped and underdeveloped avenues ripe for further exploration. A forward thinker like Worster presents bold challenges to a new generation of environmental historians on everything from capitalism and the Anthropocene to war and wilderness. This engaging volume includes a very special afterword by one of Worster’s oldest friends, the eminent intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers, who has known Worster for close to fifty years.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: A Good Set of Walking Shoes by Mark D. Hersey

Part I. Facing Limits

Chapter 1. Subversive Subjects: Donald Worster and the Radical Origins of Environmental History by Ted Steinberg

Chapter 2. Can Capitalism Ever Be Green? by Adam Rome

Chapter 3. Seeing Like a God: Environmentalism in the Anthropocene by Frank Zelko

Chapter 4. The Locked Door: Thomas Midgley Jr., Chlorofluorocarbons, and the Unintended Consequences of Technology by Kevin C. Armitage

Chapter 5. Malibu, California: Edenic Illusions and Natural Disasters by Christof Mauch

Chapter 6. Energizing Environmental History by Brian C. Black

Part II. World without Borders

Chapter 7. The Force of Fiber: Reconnecting the Philippines with Latin America and the American West via Transnational Environmental History by Sterling Evans

Chapter 8. Hunting and Wilderness in the Creation of National Identities by Mikko Saikku

Chapter 9. Why We Need Comparative History: The Case of China and the United States by Shen Hou

Chapter 10. The World in a Tin Can: Migrants in Environmental History by Marco Armiero

Chapter 11. Down in the Sky: The Promise of Aerial Environmental History by Robert Wellman Campbell

Chapter 12. Rivers of Dust: An Environmental Historian Appraises the American Legal System by Karl Boyd Brooks

Part III. Doing Environmental History

Chapter 13. Whole Earth without Borders: Earth Photographs, Space Data, and the Importance of Visual Culture within Environmental History by Neil M. Maher

Chapter 14. Beyond Stories: Geospatial Influences on the Practice of Environmental History by Sara M. Gregg

Chapter 15. Low-Hanging Fruit: Science and Environmental History by Edmund Russell

Chapter 16. The Watershed of War: Environmental History and the “Big Civil War” by Brian Allen Drake

Chapter 17. War from the Ground Up: Integrating Military and Environmental Histories by Lisa M. Brady

Afterword: The Distinctiveness of Environmental History by Daniel T. Rodgers

Bibliography

About the Contributors

Index