A Companion to Global Environmental History

The Companion to Global Environmental History orients readers to this dynamic and fast–growing field and provides an essential reference to current issues and controversies within the research arena. Bringing together environmental historians from around the world, it surveys past developments in scholarship, current contours of the field, and possible approaches for the future.   Four themed sections encompass temporal, geographic and thematic approaches from prehistory to the present day, to offer multiple points of entry into the substance and historiography of environmental history. Chapters explore themes across times, places and processes, as well as exploring environmental thought and action around the world, to give readers a cultural, intellectual and political context for engagement with the environment in modern times. The companion is a road map, not only for scholars and students who are coming to environmental history for the first time, but also for professional historians and specialists looking for comparative perspectives.

J.R. McNeill is Professor of History at Georgetown University, where he held the Cinco Hermanos Chair in Environmental and International Affairs before becoming University Professor in 2006. His book Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth–Century World was listed by The Times as one of the best science books ever written. The book was co–winner of the World History Association and Forest History Society book prizes and runner–up for the BP Natural World book prize. McNeill has authored a number of other award–winning books on environmental history, and in 2010 he was awarded the Toynbee Prize for ‘academic and public contributions to humanity.′ Erin Stewart Mauldin is an Assistant Professor of History at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Her current project examines the ecological implications of the Civil War for agriculture in the U.S. South.

“Those whose interest is world environmental history will find this book a pleasure to read from cover to cover, and the bibliographies current and extensive” ( Choice) “There is much in this book that will be of interest to environmentalists, geographers and politicians, and the general public. Environmental historians should find this a useful overview of their topic.” (Reference Reviews)