Content Index

"National Metabolism and Communications Technology Development in the United States, 1790–2000"

National metabolism of the US grew exponentially from 1790 to 2000, increasing 1600 per cent…

"Selling the Space Age: NASA and Earth's Environment, 1958–1990"

McQuaid advances the view that NASA consistently misread the importance of the most popular science-based political movement of the late twentieth century.

"Winds of Colonisation: The Meteorological Contours of Spain's Imperium in the Pacific 1521–1898"

This paper examines the relationship between prevailing weather systems and colonialism in the context of Spanish possessions in the Pacific from Magellan till the end of the nineteenth century.

"Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 1"

This two-part paper examines the origins, spread, and practices of professional forestry in Southeast Asia, focusing on key sites in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

"The Rivers Come: Colonial Flood Control and Knowledge Systems in the Indus Basin, 1840s–1930s"

This essay traces the development of the physical and cultural infrastructure of colonial flood control in the Indus valley.

"Reconciling Foreshore Development and Dune Erosion on Three Queensland Beaches: An Historical Perspective"

This paper examines the historical development of three beaches, and the subsequent implications for the beaches during the inevitable big seas and cyclones. This coastal environmental history informs local coastal communities about the importance of foresight in protecting dune systems in their natural state.

"A Dense and Sickly Mist from Thousands of Bog Fires: An Attempt to Compare the Energy Consumption in Slash-and-Burn Cultivation and Burning Cultivation of Peatlands in Finland in 1820–1920"

Burning cultivation of peatlands has been practised in peat-rich countries at one time or other throughout Western Europe. In these and other peat-rich countries, the inclusion of the emissions from burning cultivation could substantially alter historical carbon dioxide emission estimates.

"Was Brazilian Industrialisation Fuelled by Wood? Evaluating the Wood Hypothesis, 1900–1960"

Two substantive criticisms of Warren Dean’s ‘wood hypothesis’ are offered here: the wood hypothesis is accurate in general but underestimated the industrial consumption of fossil fuels, without conclusively rejecting the competing ‘hydroelectricity’ hypothesis; the method used for estimating potential energy supply from forest area was erroneous.

"Working in the Mangroves and Beyond: Scientific Forestry and the Labour Question in Early Colonial Tanzania"

Germans arrived in Tanzania with a vision of scientific forestry derived from European and Asian templates of forest management that was premised on the creation of forest reserves emptied of human settlement. They found a landscape and human environment that was not amenable to established practices of rotational forestry.

Smith, Alison K., "Public Works in an Autocratic State: Water Supplies in an Imperial Russian Town"

This paper traces the emergence in Russia of an interest in water as a public health issue from the 1830s and 1840s through to the modernising Great Reforms, when private interests helped bring older plans into reality.