Category:History
Understanding the past to know the way forward.
The Big Picture
Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment By Joy Palmer, David Edward Cooper, Peter Blaze Corcoran
List of history research sources
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
A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations by Clive Ponting 1991 McH Stacks GF75 .P66 1993. Great overview.
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
Late Victorian Holocausts By Mike Davis
The Nature of Cities / edited by Andrew C. Isenberg Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2006 McH Stacks - HT123 .N35 2006 Contents
Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Donald Worster S&E Stacks QH540.8.W67 1994
Major Problems in American Environmental History : documents and essays / edited by Carolyn Merchant Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c2005 McH Stacks - HC110.E5 M3 2005 Outline and study questions, plus links to other sources
The Vulnerable Planet : a short economic history of the environment / John Bellamy Foster S&E Stacks - GE140 .F68 1999
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler looks at how gender has structured culture of domination. Her new book rethinks the economy: The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics Link
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City By Greg Grandin. (Includes excerpt and audio interview with author).
American History
The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Studies in Environment and History) by Adam Rome
The National Parks is Ken Burns' excellent PBS series that contains much info on pioneering environmentalists such as Muir. All online for free link
Changes in the Land by William Cronon was long the central text in the Core course, a pioneering work in eco-history, and it it still the best explanation of how we got where we are. These excerpts (requires course login) documents how Native Americans related to nature, and what happened when the market was introduced. Ch. 8 is the summary/conclusion. He was also wrote "Trouble with Wilderness," which set off a lively debate, which concludes here.
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan
Atomic America by Todd Tucker. On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again.
Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History
by Ted Steinberg
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.
Bodie's Gold: Tall Tales & True History From a California Mining Town, Marguerite Sprague, College Eight '82 University of Nevada Press, 2003
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
Local History
UCSC organic gardening history, extensive oral history
Leftmost City by Domhoff includes environmental activism in the city of Santa Cruz.
Denzil R. Verardo, Porter '70, Jennie Verardo, Merrill '70 Napa Valley: From Golden Fields to Purple Harvest, Windsor Publications Inc., 1986 Restless Paradise: Santa Cruz County, An Illustrated History, Windsor Publications Inc., 1987
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" See also "The Value of a Varmit " Ch 13 in Nature's Economy
Articles in category "History"
The following 5 pages are in this category, out of 5 total.
