Category:History

Understanding the past to know the way forward.

World History

Collapse by Jared Diamond, (celebrated author of Guns, Germs and Steel) seeks to understand why so many civilizations have been unable to avoid destroying the environment they depended upon. In this selection he summaries the reasons, which may also be involved in your issue. TEDtalk video

Global Environmental History / I.G. Simmons Simmons, I. G. (Ian Gordon), 1937- Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008 McH Stacks - GF13 .S56 2008 Link

Natures Past : the environment and human history / Paolo Squatriti, editor Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2007 McH Stacks - GF13 .N38 2007 Link

Environment and Empire (UK) / William Beinart and Lotte Hughes Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007 McH Stacks - GF551 .B45 2007

The Nature of Cities / edited by Andrew C. Isenberg Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2006 McH Stacks - HT123 .N35 2006 Contents

California History

California Environmental History bibliography

Mining California: An Ecological History by Andrew C. Isenberg (see course reader)

The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area by Richard Walker

A history of California counties.

Californiahistory.com is absolutely devoted to the history of California. General and more difficult to search for details about one place.

Links to popular California history sites (e.g., railroads, museums)

History of the county of Los Angeles (not just the city--the entire county)

Land of Sunshine : an environmental history of metropolitan Los Angeles Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, c2005 McH Stacks - GF504.C2 L36 2005

History and nostalgia, for historic minded.

Native Americans (see also Native American page)

Charles Mann, author of 1491(book exploration on how Native Americans used the land) has also written about interactions between colonists and Native peoples.

Another account of megafauna extinctions

Nature and the environment in pre-Columbian American life Kowtko, Stacy Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006 McH Stacks - E98.S67 K69 2006

Histories of Environmental Movement

Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (1993) Review of Gottlieb book that tells alternative history of the environmental movement.

American Environmentalism: The U.S. Environmental Movement, 1970-1990 / edited by Riley E. Dunlap and Angela G. Mertig. Published Philadelphia : Taylor & Francis, c1992 (provides a succinct conventional overview of U.S. environmental movement in introductory chapter)

Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement, Island Press; Revised Edition, 2003

Nature and the environment in twentieth-century American life / Brian Black Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006 McH Stacks - GF503 .B54 2006 Link

Nature and the environment in nineteenth-century American life / Brian Black Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006 McH Stacks - GF503 .B53 2006

California Environmental History bibliography

US Environmental History bibliography

One of the early debates about the environment was between Preservationists such as John Muir and Conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot is explored in the video The Wilderness Idea, which can be found at McHenry Library (ask for VT2197) Discussion of the evolution of the term "conservation"