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dylanh · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 48

So, this is a little intimidating starting this off. Anyway, my definition is based of the two I came up with for Merchant and Cronon, which I'm happy to share here, but I think we'll probably share them tomorrow. There was one 'umbrella' idea I observed in the two author's definitions, and it made a lot of sense to me based on the other readings we've done.

Environmental history is a study of past events used to better the future. It helps us learn from previous generations mistakes and triumphs, particularly relating to nature and non-human elements.

Besides what I already said led me to this definition, I added what I thought. Especially the last part. The first sentence seems to be a pretty big consensus among the historians we've looked at, but I think the idea of using environmental history to better the future is really important. This idea relates back to the politics thing I mentioned in class, and how some of the people who created this branch of history are using it for everyones benefit, which lets them help themselves. In order to fulfill these selfish intentions, this type of history has to be branded as something everyone can experience. The mistakes/triumphs part came from Merchant. I wasn't so into her reading, but her ideas of examining the smallest details of human interaction seemed pretty good to me. And then obviously, the nature and non-human elements thing is the environment. Without that, environmental history seems sort of like the micro-history idea we mentioned. Nature is a vague term, and we mentioned it being non-human elements of the world, so I figured both made the definition more clear.

That's it for now, I'll post more later to respond to someone else.

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IsaacRynowecer · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 17

I used 3 main quotes to get Cronon’s definition of environmental history.

“I felt that my responsibility both as a teacher and as someone who cares about the future must be to resist such a conclusion”

“The want their histories to be useful not just in helping us understand the past, but in helping us change the future…”

“Whatever affection we may feel for the attractions of cyclical time and natural equilibrium, our chief stock in trade is linear time and disequilibrium: we study change.”

So my definition for Cronon is: Using the environment to look at human change in hopes of improving the world for the future.

I had a much harder time coming up with Merchant’s definition because I feel like she was more talking about things that need to be looked at when considering environmental history. I could be specific and say her definition is something like “Looking at how woman, minorities, and the economy affected the environment” but I feel like that could be shortened to “How people affected the environment” but that definition doesn’t say anything useful. In the final paragraph where she says “Race, gender, and class are lenses through which to view history and interpret human interactions with the environment” it sounds like she is talking about subsets within Environmental history.

I don’t really have my own solid definition of environmental history yet. The Worster quote “Environmental history is about the role and place of nature in human life.” Really resonated with me, so I guess if I had to define it I would say Environmental history is a study of how nature has affected human existence. The Cronon reading was the only other reading that I really clicked with, however I did not really want to use his definition in mine because I don’t think environmental history is necessarily trying to improve the world. I think it is environmental historians that have that objective and not the discipline itself.

oliviabunty · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 23

zach.aronson · Joined: 04 Jan 2011 Posts: 21

To me, Merchant most clearly stated her main points about the relationship between racism (along with other societal issues) and the environment it which its exists. For example, Merchant speaks of human enslavement and its relationship with the "enslavement" if land. Because of specific circumstances dealing with the harvesting of crops as well asand resistance from slaves (primarily African American), Humans have constructed distinct cultural characteristics that dealt with "living on the land", characteristics that would not have came to be with out the involvement of the environment.

At first our class seemed to believe that the definition of environment is solely Nature, and the outdoors. Yes these aspects have a lot to do with what constitutes an environment but there is much more to it
My computer defines ENVIRONMENT as "the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates."

From Merchants examples and the definition i found, i believe the definition of Environmental history is human based history that has been affected by the surroundings of the individual(s).

Finally, the only reason i didn't mention Cronon in this message is because his passage confused the hell out of me. Most of what he stated i didn't really understand, so maybe as a prompt for your future posts, could a couple people maybe state their opinions or ideas of what Cronon was trying to say? His final paragraph made sense and wrapped it all up but it as the smaller details that confused me such as Number 2: Neither nature nor culture is static. [/list]

oliviabecker · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 23

Hey,

So, after reading everyones posts I realize the working definitions I came up with were a little broad. In this case, I think its valuable to focus on the smaller details the authors give, but not to lose sight of the actual argument they're trying to make.

Okay so the definition I came up with from Cronan was:
Environmental history gives us the “meaning” we’re looking for in history. We cannot study human history—either social movements, relationship with time, the study of other cultures--without the understanding that it comes from our environment, and with that it can be used to further understand our present and future through that context.

and Merchant:
Environmental history is how the environment has not only been affected but also how it can be used to address questions about such things as race, class, gender and overall roles in humanity. These categories are lenses through which to interpret human interactions with the environment, ground zero for understanding the rest.

So both of these ended up sounding pretty similar which is somewhat surprising and somewhat not. Both Cronon and Merchant share a basic tenet of what “Enviromental history” is. On the most basic level, they both agree that it is a lens in which to study humanity. How history has played out due to the environment and how it has been affected by our environment. Both agree it has an undeniable relationship with social and political movements across humanity. Merchent might have focussed a little more on the nitty gritty examples while Cronon set up more over arching points.

I agree with this and to go one step further, my understanding of Environmental History is that in order to understand either ours or another culture/society, we must understand their relationship with their environment, and their understanding of that relationship.

wfreedberg · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 24

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order and not directly responding to anybody- though I did get to read through Olivia's post before starting....

A quote on page 15 looked particularly straightforward and inclusive. “What is needed is a longer-term global, comparative, historical perspective that treats the environment as a meaningful variable”. (John Richards)
That “perspective” is what I think of when I think about Environmental History. It is studying history and accounting for the Earth’s role as an agent of change. I still think this is the simplest way to define E.Hist- it may not be the most accurate.
I want to go further than that.
I was most interested in the first nights’ readings- especially in the audacity of Diamond’s claims as he tried to explain such complicated events with such straightforward (albeit large-scale) factors in the past. Here’s my “keeper” definition.

Environmental History is reverse determinism: it centers on the idea that all events can be explained by tracing their causes to fundamental natural phenomena.

That is, if we had infinitely accurate knowledge of cause and effect, we could trace everything that happens in the present back to [let’s say] how matter was organized after the big bang.

I feel like we should be able to take some liberties with our definitions. We’ve only done two nights’ reading on it, it’s still an emerging field, and it seems like a field that is meant to be practical and useful based on how you want to apply it.

… And I still don’t know how to work with Cronon and Merchant’s definitions. I’m frustrated because I don’t think we can compare their definitions of E.Hist based on those two articles- neither of them are trying to write a comprehensive or even general article. Cronon gets too caught up in how E.Hist can be used, and Merchant in how it can be interpreted, for me to feel good about any one-liner definitions from their perspectives.
I can tell, though, is that Merchant sees Environmental History as useful insofar as it can justify or explain culture and behavior. She talks more about how the environment plays in to other established areas of history, like how it affected race relations, food culture, and gender roles.

[BTW. I’m using “the environment” to mean everything organic around us, trees, crops, creatures, and so on, and “nature” to include plate tectonics, day length, gravity, and just about everything else in the real world. At some point can we figure out how those words should actually be used?]

dylanh · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 48

E. Carson · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 12

I’m not to sure of my definition but I would say:
Environmental history is looking at not just politics but everyday life of humans both in the woods and in highly populated cities and relooking/examining what really happened in the past. Also, there is the aspect of relating the past to the present and future.

I liked the quote “its principal goal became one of deepening our understanding of how humans have been effected by their natural environment through time and, conversely, how they have effected that environment and with what results.” I liked this because it seemed to be a very short and sweat definition of environmental history, though as was said in class that is not the full truth because it is so condensed.

When I think of environmental history 2 basic images pop in my head. One is Walden Pond and the book by Henry Thoreau, entitled Walden, which talks about his experiences on Walden pond. And the other image is that of a crowded bustling city.
---

When I look at Cronon and Merchant I see that they have very different takes of how to look at environmental history. To me Cronon is a little more teachers styled by the way that he has an understanding that he believes. Like Dylan I think that he believes that studying and using environmental history will affect/better the future of humans. (if you don’t know your history then you are bound to repeat it) I believe that though bettering the future is common in many if not all hosieries it still applies here. I call this teachery because 1: he can teach the idea of it being necessary to the future well, and 2: by being a teacher he is effecting the future by teaching his students about this history.

Merchant on the other hand is, in my opinion, like a student like us still "learning" and still defining her Environmental studying. I think it was Olivia who said that her writing was like an essay we would write. (im sorry if Olivia said this about one of the other reading and not this one. I can’t remember but I think it applies to this as well). She uses many examples like we would while researching.

zach.aronson · Joined: 04 Jan 2011 Posts: 21

oliviabunty · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 23

this may be unhelpful.

but I'm starting to notice a debate sprouting about "humans vs. non-humans"
is that really what we're talking about? are the non-humans ALIENS?
jk, but seriously.

I think we mean humans vs. environment (meaning: land, trees, animals, ...maybe culture)

or MAYBE there are humans and then there is environment and the grey area in between those two is culture. That's also the place environmental history lives.

but regardless of all that, how interesting is it that when this debate first crops up we define environment in relation to its human-ness, and not the other way around. I mean, it's kind of expected, but still interesting. We're taking a class on ENVIRONMENTAL history, but we can only define our environment in terms of ourselves… it's non-human.

dylanh · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 48

so, like olivia, this may be unhelpful, but.

here are my interpretations of three definitions i think we need.

Humans: People and everything they create and do, ranging from skyscrapers to their domestication animals.

Nature: Everything that isnt human.

ok well i sort of got myself all confused trying to do that, but i guess what i have there is worth leaving. put simply: humans are us, nature is not, non-humans is nature, and i used that term because i think nature is over used and vague.

Willblum · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 21

I'm not sure that Cronon wanted advocates for environmental history based on its power to change the future for the better. That was the distinction he made between environmentalists and environmental historians, and the reason why he hesitates to answer questions about where he thinks environmental issue are headed future. I think he says that, "telling parables about nature and the human past," is a useful thing to as a reaction to the "despair" it produced in his students. I mean I would guess that a lot of his political/philosophical views align with environmentalists, but he pretty clearly distances himself from them. He says that it has the power to remind people of the power of nature and humans etc etc, but I see that more as an affirmation of the value of one's primary objective being to answer the question: "What is the story?".

I would say that a mention of improving the future doesn't really have a place in a concise definition of environmental history. So, here's mine I guess:

Environmental Historians acknowledge that every topic in more traditional histories has a natural context, and that natural factors have affected every aspect of human life. They may choose to focus on historical instances where the interaction between human and nature and its consequences are particularly direct or significant, or they might choose to look at the broader effect an environment has on the culture it supports.

The reconsideration of different types or aspects of history with an environmental perspective also falls under the umbrella.

I think that last part better describes what Merchant did, but I don't really know what else to say about merchant, so there you go.

gaubin · Joined: 15 Nov 2010 Posts: 29

For me environmental history is the study of looking at the past through the lens of how cultures, human behavior, industry and governmental policies have effected the environment. I would also say that it is the opposite. It is also the study of how the environment has affected cultures, human behavior, industry and governmental policies. Taking from Merchant I like what she had to say. “Race, gender, and class are lenses through which to view history and interpret human interactions with the environment.” (12) I agree with Dylan in that although maybe not the main goal of environmental historians I believe that the knowledge and insights gained by their research can definitely influence the future direction of human interaction with nature.

This is the definition of environmental history I came up with for Cronon:

That no matter how much historians may try environmental history will always be more or less political and that environmental historians want to contribute to understanding the past but also the future. “…but in helping us change the future…” ( Cool

That environmental history is the study of change and that it seeks to include nature into human history and really that nature and humans are so intertwined that they cannot be separated. “As a corollary, most environmental historians would add that human beings are not the only actors who make history. Other creatures do too, as do large natural processes, and any history that ignores their effects is likely to be woefully incomplete.” (9)

I am struggling with Merchant’s definition of environmental history but this is what I got:

Environmental history is to help historians look at big and complicated issues like race, gender and class background. By looking at it with a mind toward what role the environment played in these issues and vice versa it gives a fuller picture than just say by looking at it through a more traditional historic lens. “Environmental history has widened its scope to include questions of the meanings and relationships between the environment and the roles played by people of color, by women and men, and by rich and poor.” (10)

How do people quote other people and have it in a grey box?

IsaacRynowecer · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 17

arose2011 · Joined: 03 Jan 2011 Posts: 17

To continue what Dylan and Olivia (Buntaine) are talking about, I want to again refer to a quote that talks about this “Grey area” Olivia mentioned.

“It is in the midst of this compromised and complex situation – the reciprocal influences of a changing nature and a changing society – that environmental history must find its home.” (Richard White, Page 13).

I definitely agree with that quote, and with what Olivia was trying to say about that space in between nature and humans. I feel like environmental history is more like what Olivia (Becker)’s interpretation of Cronon’s definition. In studying environmental history, we should not separate nature from humanity, because we cannot fully understand one without the other. My personal definition of environmental history is, obviously, still in the works, but at the moment it looks something like this:

Environmental History is the study of humanity and nature’s interactions in order to more completely understand how both got to where they are, and where they’re going.

Most of the readings have talked about those interactions, one way or another. Merchant talked about the indirect effects of nature on class, race, and gender, but doesn’t acknowledge the opposite effects. Diamond talked about how several natural factors led to Eurasia’s conquering of the Americas. I’ve also noticed a little bit of a pattern not with the readings, but with popular culture’s views on these interactions. Nature’s interactions with humans almost always seems to be shown as innocent and positive, while human interactions with nature are almost always shown as selfish and negative. If anyone vehemently disagrees with me, I’d love to hear a different opinion on this.

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