scholarly journals A View from the Bush: Space, Environment and the Historiography of Science

2009 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Evenden
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Historical Geography ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Spatial Approach ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
History Of

Abstract This paper examines the interdisciplinary connections among the history of science, historical geography and environmental history. Four approaches have shaped recent scholarship: a spatial approach developed primarily but not exclusively within the discipline of geography that emphasizes problems of space, place, location and circulation; second, a disciplinary approach which pursues histories of environmental disciplines; third, a science and change approach containing works which emphasize the role of science in environmental change; and fourth an eco-spatial approach which includes studies that seek to engage with and link historiographies of science, environment and spatiality. I argue that these approaches have created new connections between fields that should be fostered and extended.

The Environmental Fall of the Roman Empire

Daedalus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Harper
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
History Of ◽  
Health And Disease ◽  
Climate Proxies

Global environmental history is currently being enriched by troves of new data, and new models of environmental variability and human impact. Earth scientists are rapidly expanding historians’ knowledge of the paleoclimate through the recovery and analysis of climate proxies such as ice cores, tree rings, stalagmites, and marine and lake sediments. Further, archaeologists and anthropologists are using novel techniques and methods to study the history of health and disease, as revealed through examination of bones and paleomolecular evidence. These possibilities open the way for historians to participate in a conversation about the long history of environmental change and human response. This essay considers how one of the most classic of all historical questions–the fall of the Roman Empire–can receive an answer enriched by new knowledge about the role of environmental change.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Samiparna Samanta
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Imagination

This tale of animals and Empire in colonial Calcutta rests at the intersection of three scholarships: history of science/medicine, environmental history and urban history. The introduction situates this study in the larger historiographical narrative and describes the contribution of the project to South Asian scholarship and beyond. Much of the extant literature on environmental history has gone toward arguing for the role of nature as a historical actor. But it has been relatively less emphatic toward the study of non-human subjects, particularly domestic animals in empire building. The novelty and richness of the book lies in its invocation of complex networks of human and nonhuman actors in an empire to inform the metropolitan scientific imagination. It also foregrounds the theoretical underpinnings and methodology of this book by highlighting what is new about this work.

Shared ground: Between environmental history and the history of science

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-440
Author(s):  
Mark D. Hersey ◽  
Jeremy Vetter
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cross Fertilization

Recent years have witnessed a significant expansion in the number of studies positioned at the intersection of the history of science and environmental history. Although these studies continue to navigate lingering methodological tensions, collectively they underscore the promise of a disciplinary cross-fertilization that proved largely latent for the first quarter century or more following environmental history’s emergence as a discrete discipline. This article situates this recent scholarship in the historiographical landscape from which it has emerged. To that end, it (a) summarizes the fields’ early intersections; (b) examines the ways in which disciplinary tensions made the intersection fraught; (c) traces shifts in both fields that made that intersection more conducive to cross-disciplinary work; and (d) sketches the trajectories of some of the prominent threads of the recent scholarship deliberately situated at the nexus of the disciplines.

scholarly journals SCIENCE IN HISTORY

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-242
Author(s):  
JAMES POSKETT
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
The Future ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglophone World

AbstractWhat is the history of science? How has it changed over the course of the twentieth century? And what does the future hold for the discipline? This ‘Retrospect’ provides an introduction to the historiography of science as it developed in the Anglophone world. It begins with the foundation of the Cambridge History of Science Committee in the 1940s and ends with the growth of cultural history in the 2000s. At the broadest level, it emphasizes the need to consider the close relationship between history and the history of science. All too often the historiography of science is treated separately from history at large. But as this essay shows, these seemingly distinct fields often developed in relation to one another. This essay also reveals the ways in which Cold War politics shaped the history of science as a discipline. It then concludes by considering the future, suggesting that the history of science and the history of political thought would benefit from greater engagement with one another.

scholarly journals Challenging the Environmental History of the Cerrado: Science, Biodiversity and Politics on the Brazilian Agricultural Frontier

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandro Dutra e Silva
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Brazilian Cerrado ◽  
Agricultural Frontier ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Environmental Interactions ◽  
History Of

This article presents an overview of the environmental history of the Brazilian Cerrado, its environmental characteristics and the processes related to the historical change in the landscapes of this endangered ecosystem. It highlights competing classifications of the Cerrado, the role of politics in establishing them, and the environmental consequences of such classifications. More than just describing an environment, classifying an ecosystem is a political process that involves complex socio-environmental interactions. The sources used points out the different attempts to get to know and "conquered" the Cerrado, bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from a variety of actors and institutions. Historiographic challenges go beyond environmental descriptions in that the socio-environmental interactions that made up this unique ecosystem are equally complex. This paper’s conclusions reinforce the interdisciplinary role of environmental history in the study of ecosystems and the complex relationship between culture and nature.

The environmental history of Australian rivers: a neglected field of opportunity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul I. Boon
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Historical Ecology ◽  
Numerical Data ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Australian Community ◽  
History Of

Historical ecology documents environmental change with scientific precepts, commonly by using statistical analyses of numerical data to test specific hypotheses. It is usually undertaken by ecologists. An alternative approach to understanding the natural world, undertaken instead by historians, geographers, sociologists, resource economists or literary critics, is environmental history. It attempts to explain in cultural terms why and how environmental change takes place. This essay outlines 10 case studies that show how rivers have affected perceptions and attitudes of the Australian community over the past 200+ years. They examine the influence at two contrasting scales, namely, the collective and the personal, by investigating the role that rivers had in the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788, the establishment of capital cities, perceptions of and attitudes to the environment informed by explorers’ accounts of their journeys through inland Australia, the push for closer settlement by harnessing the country’s rivers for navigation and irrigation, anxiety about defence and national security, and the solastalgia occasioned by chronic environmental degradation. Historical ecology and environmental history are complementary intellectual approaches, and increased collaboration across the two disciplines should yield many benefits to historians, to ecologists, and to the conservation of Australian rivers more widely.

Gender and the historiography of science

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludmilla Jordanova
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Historiography Of Science ◽  
Logical Reason ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Intellectual Maturity

The production of big pictures is arguably the most significant sign of the intellectual maturity of a field. It suggests both that the field's broad contours, refined over several generations of scholarship, enjoy the approval of practitioners, and that audiences exist with an interest in or need for overviews. The situation is somewhat more complicated in the history of science, since the existence of big historical pictures precedes that of a well-defined scholarly field by about two centuries. Broadly conceived histories of science and medicine were being written in the eighteenth century, when such an all-encompassing vision was central to the claims about the progress of knowledge upon which Enlightenment ideologues set such store. The Plato to Nato style histories, characteristic of the earlier twentieth century, were written largely by isolated pioneers, and while these were used in teaching as the field was becoming professionalized, recent scholars have preferred to concentrate on a monographic style of research. Despite the existence of the series started by Wiley, and now published by Cambridge University Press, it is only in the last ten years or so that more conscious attempts have been made to generate a big-picture literature informed by new scholarship. It is noteworthy that most of this is addressed to students and general readers, although there is no logical reason why it should not tackle major theoretical issues of concern to scholars. My point about maturity still holds, then, since as a designated discipline the history of science is rather new; it is still feeling out its relationship with cognate disciplines. Big-picture histories have an important role to play in these explorations since they make findings and ideas widely available and thereby offer material through which ambitious interpretations can be debated, modified and transformed.

The Discovery of X-Rays: a Probable Case of Second Order Observation

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 403
Author(s):  
Marco Aurélio Clemente Gonçalves ◽  
Mariele Regina Pinheiro Gonçalves ◽  
Pablo Eduardo Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Probable Case ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

The discovery of x-rays, one of the most beautiful experiments ever carried out, generates numerous controversies and these, in turn, can trigger a series of counterproductive information regarding not only the History of Science but also the teaching  activity. The aim of this article is to resolve these controversies concerning what ocurred and highlight the important role of the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, highlighting not only his genius but, especially in this case in particular, his condition of second-order observer. It is not uncommon to find information in various media refering to this discovery under the claim that it was the result of a fortuitous event, and this denotes a profound lack of knowledge about the facts or a disrespect for the renowned discoverer. Such allegations about the event depreciate the extraordinary discovery that impacts humanity, from the deed  to the present. Thus, through a brief historical reconstruction, it was tried to present here what had happened judiciously. With this respect, the brilliant scientist is given the status of a second-rate observer, from the philosophical point of view. This condition resonates with the diachronic aspect of the History of Science, according to the perspective presented here, and it is also supported by the time taken by the discoverer from the beginning of his research until the end of it. Keywords: X-Ray. Second-Order Observer. History of Science. ResumoO descobrimento dos raios-x, um dos mais belos experimentos já realizados, gera inúmeras controvérsias e essas, por sua vez, podem desencadear uma série de informações contraproducentes no tangente não só a História da Ciência como também à atividade de ensino. O presente artigo tem como objetivo dirimir tais polêmicas com respeito ao ocorrido e destacar o importante papel do físico alemão Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, destacando não só sua genialidade, mas sobretudo, neste caso em particular, a sua condição de observador de segunda ordem. Não é raro encontrar em diversos meios de comunicação informações com respeito a referida descoberta sob a alegação de que a mesma fora fruto de um caso fortuito e isso denota profundo desconhecimento sobre os fatos, ou então, desrespeito com o renomado descobridor. Tais alegações sobre o sucedido depreciam a descoberta extraordinária que impacta a humanidade, desde o feito até a atualidade. Assim, através de breve reconstrução histórica, buscou-se aqui apresentar o ocorrido criteriosamente. Com este respeito passa-se a atribuir ao brilhante cientista a condição de observador de segunda ordem, do ponto de vista filosófico. Tal condição encontra ressonância no aspecto diacrônico da História da Ciência, segundo a perspectiva aqui apresentada e está amparada, também, pelo tempo empreendido pelo descobridor desde o início de sua pesquisa até a finalização da mesma. Palavras-chave: Raios-x. Observador de Segunda Ordem. História da Ciência.

Practice and the History of Science in the PRC: A Historiographic Reflection

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-463
Author(s):  
Jia-Chen Fu
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
State Building ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
Geographical Imagination ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Transnational Connections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese State

Abstract Recent scholarship on the history of science in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has provided new horizons for exploring questions about the nature and epistemology of socialist science, its epistemic virtues, its knowledge-producing practices, its geographical imagination and networks of communication and exchange, and its relations to the Chinese state and state building. In this essay the author uses a focus on practice to extrapolate implications and tendencies that he sees as unifying recent studies, and he clarifies their contributions to the current understanding of the history of science in the PRC. Particularly with respect to Chinese state-science relations and the nature of Maoist mass science, a focus on practice illuminates how recent scholarship has queried and interrogated unitary conceptions of the Chinese state and science, highlighted transnational connections and movements, and deepened our understanding of Maoist mass science.

Physics Textbooks and Textbook Physics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Simon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science Education ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of Physics ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
German States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

This article focuses on physics textbooks and textbook physics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular emphasis on developments in France, Germany, Britain, and the United States. It first examines the role that physics textbooks played in the early stages of the professionalization of the history of science before presenting a general overview of the genesis of textbook physics in the nineteenth century. It also looks at major textbooks produced in France and the German states while making some reference to British and American textbooks. Finally, it considers recent scholarship dealing with textbooks in the history of physics. The article shows how our views on textbooks have been shaped by events that have established particular hierarchies between scientific research and science education, and between universities and schools. It argues that the study of textbooks would benefit from greater reflexivity.

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