The majority of articles in this issue of Environment and History shed some light on the relationship between colonialism and the environment and on colonial constructions of nature.
As the British entered the Mizo hills (part of the Indo-Burmese range of hills, then known as the Lushai hills) to chase the headhunting tribal raiders and try to gain control over them by securing a foothold in the heart of the hills at Aizawl, they witnessed an amazing ecological phenomenon: a severe famine apparently caused by rats.
This paper examines the social history of Kalahandi in western Orissa over the 1800–1950 period, in an attempt to explore the roots of the famine which haunts the region even today.
The present investigation examines the resonance of such catastrophes in the correspondence network of the universal scholar Albrecht von Haller (1708–77).
Experts in history, history of science, archaeology, geography, and environmental studies examine the history of the region.
This exploration of the deepening crisis of food security in India looks at four case studies, dealing respectively with Punjab, Warangal, Kalahandi, and Bellary. These are interspersed by insights into a movement in the Himalayas that may offer alternatives in the form of sustainable agricultural systems, which revive traditional agricultural practices (Beej Bachao Andolan).
The authors regard migration as a form of adaptation and argue that Irish migration in 1740–1741 should be considered as a case of climate-induced migration.
British perceptions of the 1874 famines in India and the Ottoman Empire were shaped by discourses that defined these regions as spaces of absence, scarcity, wilderness, or empty land in desperate need of colonial investment and opportunity.
This film examines the effects of mass monoculture farming and traces Idaho potatoes back to the Peruvian highlands.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road portrays a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalytic world turned savage.
