A Field on Fire
The Future of Environmental History

Mark D. Hersey (Edited by), Mark D. Hersey (Contributions by), Ted Steinberg (Edited by), Ted Steinberg (Contributions by), Marco Armiero (Contributions by), Kevin C. Armitage (Contributions by), Brian C. Black (Contributions by), Lisa M. Brady (Contributions by), Karl Boyd Brooks (Contributions by), Robert Wellman Campbell (Contributions by), Brian Allen Drake (Contributions by), Sterling Evans (Contributions by), Sara M. Gregg (Contributions by), Shen Hou (Contributions by), Neil M. Maher (Contributions by), Christof Mauch (Contributions by), Daniel T. Rodgers (Contributions by), Adam Rome (Contributions by), Edmund Russell (Contributions by), Mikko Saikku (Contributions by), Frank Zelko (Contributions by)

9780817320010, The University of Alabama Press

Hardback, published 29 January 2019

328 pages, 13 black & white figures, 4 maps
23.1 x 15.4 x 3.3 cm, 0.66 kg

A fun, thought-provoking read penned by some of the most talented environmental historians in the field."" - Bartow J. Elmore, author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism

""The essays in A Field on Fire examine new trends in environmental history and will interest environmental historians, geographers, and historians of science and technology."" - Lisa Mighetto, author of Wild Animals and American Environmental Ethics and executive director of the American Society for Environmental History

A frank and engaging exploration of the burgeoning academic field of environmental history

Inspired by the pioneering work of preeminent environmental historian Donald Worster, the contributors to A Field on Fire: The Future of Environmental History reflect on the past and future of this discipline. Featuring wide-ranging essays by leading environmental historians from the United States, Europe, and China, the collection challenges scholars to rethink some of their orthodoxies, inviting them to approach familiar stories from new angles, to integrate new methodologies, and to think creatively about the questions this field is well positioned to answer.
 
Worster's groundbreaking research serves as the organizational framework for the collection. Editors Mark D. Hersey and Ted Steinberg have arranged the book into three sections corresponding to the primary concerns of Worster's influential scholarship: the problem of natural limits, the transnational nature of environmental issues, and the question of method. Under the heading “Facing Limits,” five essays explore the inherent tensions between democracy, technology, capitalism, and the environment. The “Crossing Borders” section underscores the ways in which environmental history moves easily across national and disciplinary boundaries. Finally, “Doing Environmental History” invokes Worster's work as an essayist by offering self-conscious reflections about the practice and purpose of environmental history.
 
The essays aim to provoke a discussion on the future of the field, pointing to untapped and underdeveloped avenues ripe for further exploration. A forward thinker like Worster presents bold challenges to a new generation of environmental historians on everything from capitalism and the Anthropocene to war and wilderness. This engaging volume includes a very special afterword by one of Worster's oldest friends, the eminent intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers, who has known Worster for close to fifty years.

• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: A Good Set of Walking Shoes by Mark D. Hersey
• Part I. Facing Limits
• Chapter 1. Subversive Subjects: Donald Worster and the Radical Origins of Environmental History by Ted Steinberg
• Chapter 2. Can Capitalism Ever Be Green? by Adam Rome
• Chapter 3. Seeing Like a God: Environmentalism in the Anthropocene by Frank Zelko
• Chapter 4. The Locked Door: Thomas Midgley Jr., Chlorofluorocarbons, and the Unintended Consequences of Technology by Kevin C. Armitage
• Chapter 5. Malibu, California: Edenic Illusions and Natural Disasters by Christof Mauch
• Chapter 6. Energizing Environmental History by Brian C. Black
• Part II. World without Borders
• Chapter 7. The Force of Fiber: Reconnecting the Philippines with Latin America and the American West via Transnational Environmental History by Sterling Evans
• Chapter 8. Hunting and Wilderness in the Creation of National Identities by Mikko Saikku
• Chapter 9. Why We Need Comparative History: The Case of China and the United States by Shen Hou
• Chapter 10. The World in a Tin Can: Migrants in Environmental History by Marco Armiero
• Chapter 11. Down in the Sky: The Promise of Aerial Environmental History by Robert Wellman Campbell
• Chapter 12. Rivers of Dust: An Environmental Historian Appraises the American Legal System by Karl Boyd Brooks
• Part III. Doing Environmental History
• Chapter 13. 
  Whole Earth without Borders: Earth Photographs, Space Data, and the Importance of Visual Culture within Environmental History by Neil M. Maher
• Chapter 14. Beyond Stories: Geospatial Influences on the Practice of Environmental History by Sara M. Gregg
• Chapter 15. Low-Hanging Fruit: Science and Environmental History by Edmund Russell
• Chapter 16. The Watershed of War: Environmental History and the “
  Big Civil War”
  by Brian Allen Drake
• Chapter 17. War from the Ground Up: Integrating Military and Environmental Histories by Lisa M. Brady
• Afterword: The Distinctiveness of Environmental History by Daniel T. Rodgers
• Bibliography
• About the Contributors
• Index