Podcasts by Exploring Environmental History

Resources exploitation and nature protection in the border lands of Qing China from 2018-12-24T07:29:42

Much research has been devoted to the impact of the expanding European empires and settler colonies in the 18thand 19thcenturies and their impacts on nature and resources. Not much attention has...

Incendiary politics: histories of Indigenous Burning and Environmental Debates in Australia and the United States from 2018-11-02T08:54:59

The 2018 wildfires around the globe have been dramatic, prompting headlines about the world being on fire. The 2018 fire season is unusual in that so many places are experiencing major fires at ...

The timber frontier of Northern Sweden: a history of ecological and social transformation from 2018-09-26T13:53:07

Sweden is one of the largest timber exporters in Europe. The country has been an exporter since at least the early modern period. That is not surprising because pine and spruce forests cover lar...

Forestry in northern Europe: National Histories, Shared Legacies from 2018-05-19T07:19:47

Forest history in Europe is often focussed on individual nation states. It is true that all European countries have unique forest histories played out in their national contexts. But there are c...

Kangaroos and tanks: histories of militarised landscapes in Australia from 2017-12-21T05:09:34

Military operations can have repercussions for environments and landscapes a long way from the battlefields. In the case of Australia most military action during the 20th century happened far fr...

The Watery ally: military inundations in Dutch history from 2017-06-28T08:56:22

For centuries, the Dutch have fought against their arch-enemy: water. But, during the Dutch War of Independence in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch found an ally in their arch enemy. Their...

Water pollution in the Dutch Peat Colonies of Groningen, 1850-1980 from 2017-05-10T03:38

In the mid-19th century the first potato starch and strawboard factories were established in the Groningen Peat Colonies (Veenkoloniën) in the Northern Netherlands. The number of factor...

Water resilience in Western Australia since European Colonisation from 2016-10-06T12:06:29

When European Settlers arrived in Western Australia they brought their own conceptions of water security and agriculture with them. Initially the land around what is now Perth was presented as a...

Environmental History of Tidal Power in the Severn Estuary from 2016-09-10T12:28:27

In recent decades the interest in renewable energy from sources such as wind, solar and tidal power has steadily increased. However, this interest in harnessing “mother nature’s” energy is not n...

Cultured nature: The Nature Scenery Act of the Netherlands from 2016-08-23T12:22:43

When thinking of national parks most people think of famous examples like Yellow Stone and Yosemite in the United States or the Serengeti in Tanzania. These parks are large in scale with an emph...

Contested climate: the debate on the climatic influence of forests - episode 2 from 2016-05-26T12:05:33

How does one go about researching over a century of newspapers on the topic of the climatic influence of forests resulting in a few million hits? This was the daunting task facing Stephen Legg, ...

Contested climate: the debate on the climatic influence of forests – episode 1 from 2016-05-16T03:08:26

Dating back to classical antiquity in the western world, the contested notion that climate was changing due principally to the human impact on forests was strongly revived in the mid-nineteenth ...

Somerset, a ‘green and pleasant’ energy landscape? from 2016-02-20T12:03:30

With its agro-pastoral landscape of hedgerows, fields, and rolling hills and levels, often-sleepy Somerset may be the very picture of rural England – the quintessential ‘green and pleasant land’...

The Oldest Geordie: Environmental History of the River Tyne from 2015-12-15T00:52:59

Rivers are at the heart of defining the identity and lifestyle of many cities around the world, and that is nowhere stronger than in Newcastle on Tyne in the Northeast of England on the banks of...

Religion and the Origins of American Environmentalism from 2015-10-28T00:33:29

Ever since Lynn White’s 1967 essay on “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”, it is common to read in many publications that Christianity is both too anthropocentric and not much concerne...

Out of this world: environmental history of near-Earth space from 2015-08-10T05:39:40

Since the early days of the Space Age spent rocket stages, decommissioned satellites, and rubbish of all kinds have contaminated near-Earth space. At present...

The UK National Grid: history of an energy landscape and its impacts from 2015-03-06T02:10:50

We take electricity for granted and do not think of where it comes from when we switc...

Environmental history of a hydrological landscape: the soughs of Derbyshire from 2015-02-11T06:48:14

Under the Peak District of Derbyshire is an subterranean network of drainage tunnels, the so-called soughs that were used to drain the lead mines of the region.

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Tin: a historical perspective on a networked resource from 2015-01-24T13:08:20

The history of human civilization is closely linked to the exploitation of mineral resources. It is no coincidence that the...

Climate variability and population dynamics in prehistoric Australia from 2014-10-27T00:28:18

The first people to settle in Australia, ancestors of present day Aboriginals, arrived in Australia about 50,000 years ago. They took advantage of the lower sea levels that were the norm through...

Who is responsible for global warming? from 2014-09-22T10:58

Who is responsible for global warming? That is a question that has dominated recent climate negotiations, most notably the failed 2009 climate convention in Copenhagen. Developing countries were...

The Broken Promise of Agricultural Progresss from 2014-08-14T00:20

Australia is a country of extremes: it can be extremely hot and dry but also wet and prone to very big floods and its soils are poor and thin. Regardless of these extremes farmers have carved ou...

Origins, entanglements and civic aims of the early forestry movement in the United States from 2014-05-27T03:55

While the origins of forestry in the United States have been the topic of sustained interest amongst environmental and forest historians, the history of the early forestry movement itself remain...

A sustainable common future? The Brundtland Report in historical perspective from 2014-02-20T12:18

The term sustainability and phrase sustainable development were popularised with the publication of Our Common Future, a report released by the World Commission on Environment and Development in...

Environmental Humanities: something new under the sun? from 2014-01-18T10:33

Solutions to environmental issues such as climate change, toxic waste, deforestation and species extinction, have been mainly framed as scientific, technological and economic problems. The slow ...

Events in the collective environmental memory of humanity from 2013-12-18T13:43

What are the most important events in the collective environmental memory of humanity? In the spring of 2013 a group of environmental historians from around the globe was confronted with this ve...

The power of the wild from 2013-11-25T01:07

The power of the wild is an idea that has been important in western thought as a place of refuge or separation where we can feel the power of nature. It is a place where humans are not in contro...

The nature of South African environmental history from 2013-11-19T04:34

On 14 and 15 November 2013, the 44th symposium of the Australian Academy of the Humanities was held at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This year the meeting focused on the burgeoning f...

The IPCCs Fifth Assessment Report: a historical perspective from 2013-10-03T01:18

On 27 September 2013 the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its highly anticipated summary for policymakers, in advance of its fifth assessment report that will be pu...

Desire for the Wild – Wild Desires? The trouble with rewilding from 2013-09-28T03:00

It is undeniable that human influence is now felt in almost every ecosystem, region and ocean of the world. As a result wilderness or wild nature is becoming less abundant. In response to this l...

Scientific and environmental diplomacy and the Antarctic from 2013-09-18T02:06

Antarctica is a unique continent because is mostly covered in ice and, importantly, it is the only continent that has never been settled by humans until scientific bases were established in the ...

The Scottish forestry experience and the development of forestry in India from 2013-04-04T12:16

Since at least the 18th century Scotland has been the centre of forestry knowledge in Britain. Many foresters and botanists trained on Scottish estates went into the colonial service in during t...

Conquering the Highlands. History of the afforestation of the Scottish uplands from 2013-03-26T10:06

By the end of the nineteenth century, Scotland's woodlands were reduced to about six per cent of land cover. Over the course of the twentieth century, foresters worked to establish timber reserv...

Kielder: the story of a man-made landscape from 2013-02-22T01:40

Around the world, rural landscapes have been transformed by human activity as never before. In England, one of the most striking locations of such anthropogenic changes is Kielder Forest and Wat...

Remaking wetlands: a tale of rice, ducks and floods in the Murrumbidgee River region from 2012-12-05T01:26

Before the arrival of Europeans and their agriculture, Australian ducks only had to compete with other native birds and animals, as well as Aboriginal hunters. However, the introduction of water...

Canine City: Dogs and Humans in Urban History from 2012-11-20T00:40

In the modern urbanized world it is often forgotten that throughout history humans have been very dependent on animals for their survival and livelihoods. Until recently most humans in the devel...

Explorations in historical climatology from 2012-07-24T04:57

For many historical climatologists cold, wet and stormy weather worsened life for most European people and harmed the economy during the early modern period. Warmth on the other hand is generall...

Medicinal plants in New Zealand: bridging the gap between medical and environmental history from 2012-06-19T02:47

Medical historians often presume that 19th century European settlers of New Zealand and other parts of the world relied on the emerging inorganic medicines and colonial doctors to maintain their...

Silent Spring at 50: a comparison perspective from 2011-12-21T13:25

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”. This publication is often regarded as the beginning of the modern environmental movement, in particula...

A transformed landscape: the steppes of Ukraine and Russia from 2011-07-27T12:44

The steppes of Ukraine and Russia were once a sea of grass on rolling plains on which pastoral nomadic peoples grazed their herds of livestock. From the eighteenth century, the steppes have been...

Teaching and discovering environmental history online from 2011-07-11T15:40

From 27 June to 2 July 2011 the sixth conference of the European Society took place in the city of Turku in Finland. The meeting consisted of many parallel sessions on a wide range of topics exp...

Energy utopia or dystopia? - A historical perspective on nuclear energy from 2011-04-07T05:55

For the past decade nuclear energy has been increasingly promoted as a carbon neutral source of energy. The Japanese Tsunami of March 2011 threw a spanner in the works when the Fukushima One nuc...

Reframing a vision of lost fens from 2010-12-18T22:31

Wetlands were once common over a large part of eastern England. Of these so-called fens only two percent survives today and most of it is now situated in nature reserves. One of these reserves i...

Slavery, fossil fuel use and climate change: past connections, present similarities from 2010-12-08T20:54

What is the connection between the abolition of slavery, the Industrial Revolution, the use fossil fuels and climate change? Jeff Mohout of Birmingham University recently discussed this question...

The draining of the East Anglia Fens: social unrest, design flaws and unintended environmental consequences from 2010-10-06T15:40

This episode examines the history of the Fens of East Anglia in England. The Fens originally consisted of wetlands which have been artificially drained since the Middle Ages and continue to be p...

The First World War and the transformation of forestry in British Columbia from 2010-07-19T09:48

During the Second World War thousands of foresters left British Columbia and other parts of Canada to serve in the Canadian Forestry Corps in Europe. The Forestry Corps was set up to help Europe...

Island Environmental Histories: the Ogasawara Islands from 2010-07-09T10:48

Islands are complex ecological objects produced through flows of flora, coral polyps, human migration, and global capital. They are places that are constantly being changed through human and non...

Mountains, the Asiatic Black Bear and conservation in Japan and New Zealand from 2010-05-20T13:00

This episode of Exploring Environmental History features an interview with Japanologist and environmental historian Cath Knight. In her spare time she maintains the blog envirohistory NZ which e...

Volcanoes in European history from 2010-04-17T20:40

On 14 April 2010 the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted for a second time in two month after having been dormant for just under 200 years. The second eruption caused an ash plume that wa...

Distance learning environmental history and Scottish forestry from 2010-04-07T12:27

The creation of a conventional classroom based environmental history course is challenging because of the diversity of topics involved. A distance learning course delivered trough the Web is eve...

Empire and Environmental Anxiety from 2010-03-06T16:55

At present there are many environmental anxieties related to pollution, species extinction, climate change, acid deposition and many others. However, environmental anxieties are nothing new and ...

Environmental History of the 2012 Olympic site: The Lower River Lea from 2010-02-10T11:27

Former industrial sites are constantly reinvented and redeveloped reflecting changes in economies and societies over time. Nowhere else in Europe is regeneration of a former industrial site more...

Green Colonialism in Zimbabwe from 2010-01-07T05:17

This edition of the podcast is devoted to the environmental history of colonial Zimbabwe. Vimbai Kwashirai, Lecturer in African History at Durham University, examines the debates and processes o...

Historical climatology and the cultural memory of extreme weather events from 2009-12-11T10:25

In this episode Professor emeritus in history Christian Pfister, Fellow of the Oeschger Centre of Climate Research at the University of Bern examines the cultural memory of extreme weather event...

Environmental history of the Middle Ages from 2009-11-26T14:10

In this episode, Dolly Jorgensen, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway explains what the online Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages...

Biological invasions, culture and biodiversity in South Africa from 2009-11-04T09:50

The guest on this episode of the podcast is William Beinart, Rhodes Professor of race relations and director the African Studies Centre in Oxford. Professor Beinart critiques Alfred Crosby’s ide...

Biological invasions and transformations in history from 2009-10-12T11:43

This episode of the podcast reports on a one day conference examining biological invasions in history that was held at the Universiy of Oxford in September 2009. This podcast highlights two pape...

Environmental history: an applied science from 2009-09-07T20:55

This podcast essay puts environmental history in a theoretical and practical framework and considers why this area of study differs from other flavours of history. It will discuss what the narra...

Environmental history: a transatlantic perspective from 2009-06-29T09:08

In this edition Marc Hall, Assistant Professor at the Universities of Utah and Zurich, considers the question if there are different regional flavours of environmental history. He is well placed...

Environmental history: definitions, methods and challenges from 2009-06-09T19:27

Environmental history is still a young field and in some respects quite undefined. Many practitioners as well as outsiders struggle to define its boundaries. The challenge that historians are no...

Donald Worster on environmental history from 2009-05-26T09:26

The guest on this episode of Exploring Environmental History is Donald Worster, Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas. He is one of the leading figures in ...

Disasters, history and cultures of coping from 2008-11-26T16:16

The inter-relationship of human beings and the natural world, and the influence of the physical environment on a community’s social and cultural development, is very well demonstrated in societi...

Great Floods of Northumbria, 1771-2008 from 2008-11-21T10:11

The topic of this episode of Exploring Environmental History is the history of severe river flooding in the north east of England. With the floods in the town of Morpeth in September 2008 fresh ...

Environmental histories of settlement in Canada and New Zealand from 2008-07-10T18:29

This edition of the podcast is devoted to two countries of European Settlement: New Zealand and Canada. Both countries received a significant number of settlers from Scotland and Ireland. Did th...

Artifact or natural? The history of Flanders Moss in Scotland from 2008-05-19T22:30

This episode of the podcast returns to Scotland for a look at the environmental history of Flanders Moss, a raised peat bog west of Stirling. John Harrison, a historian from Stirling, reveals wh...

Archaeology, History and Climate Change from 2008-04-11T11:39

This podcast highlights two papers presented at a conference entitled An End to History? Climate Change, the Past and the Future that that was held at the Birmingham and Midland Institute in Bir...

Urban air pollution in historical perspective from 2008-02-16T12:15

Urban air pollution is certainly not a new problem. During the Middle Ages the use of coal in cities such as London was beginning to increase. By the the 17th century the problems of urban air p...

The environmental shadow of apartheid and rinderpest from 2007-12-15T15:01

Second of two episodes devoted to environmental history of South Africa. In this episode South African historian Phia Steyn explores the environmental consequences of the industrial development ...

Botanists, colonists and local knowledge of nature in South Africa from 2007-11-29T10:11

First of two episodes devoted to environmental history of South Africa. South Africa is one of the most culturally and ecologically diverse countries in the world. Different cultures interpret a...

The ozone hole, climate change and the Canadian Arctic from 2007-10-07T18:51

This edition of the podcast explores the story of the ozone hole during the 1970s and 80s and what lessons can be learned from this environmental problem for dealing with global warming. It sugg...

History and sustainability from 2007-09-15T12:30

This edition of the podcast reports on a conference entitled History and Sustainability which was held at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sci...

Humanities, Climate Change and Digital (Environmental) History from 2007-08-07T22:03

Mark Levene, founder of Rescue!History, discusses why historians and other humanities scholars should get involved and contribute to the debate and understanding of global warming. Bill Turkell,...

Environmental Connections: Europe and the Wider World from 2007-06-14T00:36

This special edition of Exploring Environmental History reports on the fourth conference of the European Society for Environmental History which was held at the Free University Amsterdam from 5 ...

Scottish Environmental History from 2007-05-24T09:52

Podcast exploring recent developments in Scottish Environmental History. Richard Oram, Director of the Centre for Research in Environmental History, University of Stirling, talks about how the e...

Australian environmental and forest history from 2007-01-26T09:00

This podcast is entirely devoted to Australian environmental history. Libby Robin talks about the unique nature of Australian environmental history including the connection between deep and mode...

Climate history and a forest journey from 2006-12-09T18:10

In this episode climatologist Dennis Wheeler discusses the use of 18th and 19th century ship logs for historical climate reconstruction. In the second half of the podcast John Perlin talks about...

Marine Environmental History from 2006-10-25T23:23

In this edition Poul Holm talks about the development of the new sub-field of Marine Environmental History and the History of Marine Animal Populations Project. The second part of the podcast ex...

History of flood defences and waste from 2006-07-22T22:25

This podcast looks at the thousand year history of river flood protection in the Netherlands and reports on a conference exploring the complex nature of the relationship between modernity and wa...

Resources, the past and the present from 2006-05-24T00:16

Report on the annual meeting of British Environmental Historians held at the Open University in Milton Keynes on 19 May 2006. The theme of this day conference was the use of sources in Environme...

Rivers run through them: Landscapes in environmental history from 2006-04-10T15:50

Joint meeting of the American Society for Environmental History and Forest History Society held in St Paul, Minnesota, 29 March-1 April 2006. Snapshots of some papers presented and interviews wi...

Themes in environmental history from 2006-03-16T14:20

What are the important themes in environmental history? This podcast will examine some of the major themes in environmental history which have emerged over the past few decades. Themes include c...

What is environmental history? from 2006-03-02T21:00

Environmental history is a rapidly expanding subfield of history. This podcast will introduce listeners to what environmental history is and why it is needed. In the second part of the podcast F...