Content Index

"Out of the Woods and into the Lab: Exploring the Strange Marriage of American Woodcraft and Soviet Ecology in Czech Environmentalism"

It is widely assumed that modern environmentalist thinking was imported into post-communist states such as the Czech Republic post 1989. This paper shows these countries had environmental traditions of their own.

"Subterranean Bodies: Mining the Large Lakes of North-west Canada, 1921–1960"

This paper examines the history of hard rock mining on the large lakes of north-west Canada (Athabasca, Great Slave and Great Bear) from 1921 to 1960.

"Water Dreams, Earthen Histories: Exploring Urban Environmental History at the Penrith Lakes Scheme and Castlereagh, Sydney"

Urban environmental history comprises both human and ecological experience; the two were and are inseparable, and their interaction is dynamic. This essay explores the human and bioregional history of the Penrith Lakes Scheme at Castlereagh in outer Western Sydney as a case study in integrating the two approaches.

"For the 'Preservation of Friends' and the 'Destruction of Enemies:' Studying and Protecting Birds in Late Imperial Russia"

This paper surveys major developments in the Imperial Russian history of wild bird protection and related issues of ornithology during the century or so leading up to the First World War.

"Historical Evidence for Climate Instability and Environmental Catastrophes in Northern Syria and the Jazira: The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian"

The article argues that diversified subsistence and a high degree of flexibility were essential for ancient Mesopotamian societies to absorb the many risks that life in this marginal semiarid environment involved.

"Sovereignty, Collective Ingenuity and Moral Economies: The Confluence of Transnational Trends, States and Local Strategies in the Pyrenees"

This paper examines local responses to the expansion of state-driven modernity as a hegemonic ideological framework, and sovereignty as its jurisdictional scaffold.

"Enclosing the River: Industrialisation and the 'Property Rights' Discourse in the Liri Valley (South of Italy), 1806–1916"

The Liri valley story, located at the periphery of the industrial revolution, provides an excellent opportunity for investigating the environmental impact of privatisation in water resources, and its social costs.

"Interstate Water Pollution Problems and Elusive Federal Water Pollution Policy in the United States, 1900–1948"

This article examines water pollution and its control in the United States from the turn of the twentieth century until after the Second World War, a period during which water pollution became an interstate problem.

"Mining the Reefs and Cays: Coral, Guano and Rock Phosphate Extraction in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, 1844–1940"

Daley and Griggs present documentary and oral history evidence to show that the extent and severity of mining in the Great Barrier Reef has been hitherto neglected in environmental histories of the ecosystem.

"Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 2"

The second part of this two-part paper looks at the influence on forestry of knowledge and management practices exchanged through professional-scientific networks.