Environmental History and the Anthropocene

Environmental history studies the changing relationship between human societies and the natural world, a field given new urgency by climate change and the concept of the Anthropocene.

Definition

The study of the historical interactions between human societies and the natural environment, including the deep history and historiographical implications of the Anthropocene.

Scope

This topic examines environmental history as a subfield and the historical questions raised by the Anthropocene: how nature has shaped and been shaped by human activity, the environmental consequences of industrialization and the 'great acceleration', the history of climate and resources, and the challenge that planetary-scale change poses to conventional historical narratives. It surveys foundational works and the debate over whether and how humans have become a geological force.

Core questions

• How have human societies shaped, and been shaped by, the natural environment over time?
• What were the environmental consequences of industrialization and twentieth-century growth?
• Does the concept of the Anthropocene mark a genuine break in human and Earth history?
• How does planetary environmental change challenge how historians write?

Key concepts

• the Anthropocene
• great acceleration
• second nature
• climate history
• human-nature interaction

Key theories

The great acceleration

J. R. McNeill argued that the twentieth century saw an unprecedented intensification of human impact on the environment, in energy use, population, and pollution, transforming the planet at accelerating speed.

Humans as a geological force

Dipesh Chakrabarty argued that climate change collapses the distinction between human and natural history, requiring historians to think of humanity as a geophysical agent and to rethink categories like freedom and the species.

History

Environmental history emerged as a distinct field in the 1970s, associated with scholars such as Worster and Cronon in the United States and with global syntheses like McNeill's. The rise of climate science and the proposal of the 'Anthropocene' epoch in the early twenty-first century prompted new theoretical reflection, exemplified by Chakrabarty's influential 2009 essay.

Debates

Defining and dating the Anthropocene

Scholars debate whether the Anthropocene is a useful or accurate concept and when it began—the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, or the mid-twentieth-century great acceleration.

Nature, culture, and historical agency

Historians dispute how to integrate nonhuman nature into historical narratives and how planetary change affects ideas of human agency and responsibility.

Key figures

• J. R. McNeill
• Dipesh Chakrabarty
• William Cronon
• Donald Worster
• Alfred Crosby

Seminal works

• mcneill2000
• cronon1991
• chakrabarty2009

Frequently asked questions

What is environmental history?

It is the study of how human societies and the natural world have interacted and changed each other over time, treating nature not as a static backdrop but as an active part of history.

What is the Anthropocene?

It is a proposed geological epoch defined by significant human impact on Earth's systems; its definition, start date, and even validity are debated across the sciences and humanities.