Environmental History 

About: Environmental History is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Environmental history & Wilderness. It has an ISSN identifier of 1084-5453. Over the lifetime, 1310 publications have been published receiving 19829 citations.

The Trouble with Wilderness; Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature

Abstract: This will seem a heretical claim to many environmentalists, since the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet-indeed, a passion-of the environmental movement, especially in the United States. For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet. As Henry David Thoreau once famously declared, "In Wildness is the preservation of the World."' But is it? The more one knows of its peculiar history, the more one realizes that wilderness is not quite what it seems. Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation-indeed, the creation of very particular human cultures at very particular moments in human history. It is not a pristine sanctuary where the last remnant of an untouched, endangered, but still transcendent nature can for at least a little while longer be encountered without the contaminating taint of civilization. Instead, it is a product of that civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made. Wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural. As we gaze into the mirror it holds up for us, we too easily imagine that what we behold is Nature when in fact we see the reflection of our own unexamined longings and desires. For this reason, we mistake ourselves when we

Late Victorian holocausts : El Niño famines and the making of the Third World

Abstract: "Late Victorian Holocausts" focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China and North-Eastern Brazil. All of these countries were effected by the same global climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all experienced brutal famines that decimated the populations. The effects of drought were magnified in each case because of singularly destructive policies promulgated by different ruling elites. The author, Mike Davis, argues that the seeds of underdevelopment in what later became known as "The Third World" were sown in this era of high imperialism, as the price for Capitalist modernization was paid in the currency of millions of peasants' lives.

Parks in peril : people, politics, and protected areas

Abstract: Using the experience of the Parks in Peril program - a wide-ranging project instituted by The Nature Conservancy and its partner organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean to foster better park management - this book presents a broad analysis of current trends in park management and the implications for biodiversity conservation. It examines the context of current park management and challenges many commonly held views from social, political, and ecological perspectives.

The historical ecology handbook : a restorationist's guide to reference ecosystems

Abstract: "The Historical Ecology Handbook" makes essential connections between past and future ecosystems, bringing together leading experts to offer a much-needed introduction to the field of historical ecology and its practical application by on-the-ground restorationists. Chapters present individual techniques focusing on both culturally derived evidence and biological records, with each chapter offering essential background, tools, and resources needed for using the technique in a restoration effort. The book ends with four in-depth case studies that demonstrate how various combinations of techniques have been used in restoration projects. "The Historical Ecology Handbook" is a unique and groundbreaking guide to determining historic reference conditions of a landscape. It offers an invaluable compendium of tools and techniques, and will be essential reading for anyone working in the field of ecological restoration.

Salmon without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis

Abstract: A rough trip through evolutionary time humans enter the Pacific Northwest the rise of the salmon-based economies the first salmon management conflicting economies birth and growth of the salmon canning industry Indian fishermen displaced controlling the harvest the fishery moves to the ocean hatcheries in the United States fish culture moves west acclimatization - playing God with ecosystems the political tool science and salmon management different roads to restoration the road to extinction building a new salmon culture.