environments - institute of historical research | the … hessler (library of congress),...

EnvironmentsProgramme79th Anglo–AmericanConference of Historians

Senate HouseUniversity of London

1–2 July 2010

Introduction 02Contents 01

Introduction 02

ConferenceProgramme 03–15Thursday 1 JulyConference receptionFriday 2 July

ConferenceInformation 16-17Registration Fees Delegate packs and tickets Refreshments Accessibility and special needs Publishers’ fair Looking ahead

Acknowledgements 18

Gettingaround 19

It seems hard to avoid environmental issues these days. Since the Copenhagen summit failed late last year to agree on hard-hitting measures to deal with global warming, a cloud of volcanic dust has closed down European airspace and the latest oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to run up the largest cleaning bill in history. Our planet seems to be in peril. Can historians help out? Yes, perhaps they can. Over the last three decades environmental history has developed at an amazing pace, broadening and deepening our understanding of human interaction with nature, climate, landscape and resources across two millennia of historical time. This year’s Anglo-American conference is therefore a timely exploration of where environmental history has been and where it is going, of what it has taught us about the elements in earlier epochs, and of the ways in which historians of the environment can inform global green awareness today. I am delighted that we have been able to bring to London from around the world so many of the finest practitioners of environmental history. Alongside our main panels and lectures we have a publishers’ bookfair, roundtables on key recent books in the field and on environmental networks, a film presentation, a policy discussion, a spotlight on the emergent subject of disability history and much more besides. I truly hope you enjoy the conference, and that we will see you again next year, when we turn our attention to another pressing topic of past, present and future: Health in History.

Miles Taylor, Director of the IHR

EventsA5 HeadlineSub header 7pt


w

Thursday 1 July 2010 03

09.45amWelcome

10.00amPlenaryLectureBeveridge Hall, Senate House

11.00amMorningteaandcoffeeMacmillan Hall, Senate House

11.30amParallelpanels

ProtectingtheruralenvironmentinBritain,c.1850–1950Beveridge Hall, Senate House

ImaginingandconservingmodernAmericaSenate Room, Senate House

WorkingthelandscapeRoom 103, Senate House

Self-regulationandcitizenshipinearlymodernEuropeWolfson and Pollard rooms, Institute of Historical Research

Environments 04

Roger Kain, Dean of the School of Advanced Study

Donald Worster (Kansas), The green light of a new world: natural abundance, scarcity and the historians Chair: Miles Taylor (IHR)

Take the opportunity to visit the publishers’ exhibition in the Crush Hall. The exhibition will continue throughout the day with a book launch scheduled for 1.00pm.

Start of morning panel sessions

Chair: Michael Thompson (IHR) Paul Readman (KCL), The Crown, the commoners and the public: the battle over the New Forest, Hampshire, 1851–1949 Jeremy Burchardt (Reading), Preservation, community and the ‘renaissance of English rural life’, 1870–1950 Roland Quinault (IHR), Conserving the Chilterns, c.1920–50

Chair: John Beckett (VCH, IHR) Karen Jones (Kent), ‘My Winchester spoke to her’: crafting the Northern Rockies as a hunter’s paradise, c.1870–1910 David Moon (Durham), Reshaping the Great Plains in the Russian image David Schorr (Tel Aviv), East, west and American conservationism, 1830–1950 Janet Waymark (Birkbeck/IHR), Regenerating the prairies: rescuing the ‘natural’ landscape in North America

Chair: Stephanie Barczewski (Clemson)

Stefania Barca (Coimbra), Petro-landscapes: work and environment in the age of oil

Jose Carlos Orihuela (Columbia), Economic gains, environmental failures: mining in La Oroya, 1890s–2010

Yue Yunxiao (Fudan), Water conservancy development in the Ningxia irrigation district during the Qing dynasty

Chair: Valentina Pugliano (IHR) Tessa Storey (RHUL), ‘Just a change in the weather is often the cause of death, or of good health’: the environment and health in early modern Italy Leona Skelton (Durham), Insanitary nuisances in urban neighbourhoods: bottom-up self-regulation of the micro-scale environment in northern English and Scottish towns, 1560–1700 Marta Ajmar-Wollheim (Victoria & Albert Museum), Objects and well-being in the early modern Italian home



Environments 05 Environments 06

Chair: Sujit Sivasundaram (LSE) Sharla Chittick (Stirling), The water-world of Ketakamigwa and the ‘people of the dawn’ Kathy Cooke (Quinnipiac), Pure environment, pure people: eugenics, race betterment and the frontier in late 19th-century America Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells (Cambridge), The impact of American environmentalism in Southeast Asia, with special reference to Malaysia

White Horse Press are very pleased to be launching Stefania Barca’s new book

entitled Enclosing water: nature and political economy in a Mediterranean valley, 1796-1916

Alfred Crosby (Texas), Big history as prophylactic to premature interpretation: example – an anthropocene exchange for the Columbian exchange Chair: Robert Lambert (Nottingham)

Names,placesandcolonialencountersDeller Hall, Senate House

1.00pmLunchMacmillan Hall, Senate House

Booklaunch

Crush Hall, Senate House

2.00pmPlenarylectureBeveridge Hall, Senate House

3.00pmAfternoonteaMacmillan Hall, Senate House

Start of afternoon panel sessions

Chair: Mark Jenner (York) John Clark (St Andrews), Waste in the age of scarcity Timothy Cooper (Exeter), Waste and the political ecology of Victorian Britain John Scanlan (Manchester Metropolitan), The living dead: time, memory and nuclear waste

Chair: James Galloway (IHR) Stephanie Barczewski (Clemson), American timber in an English house: William Blathwayt, Dyrham Park and changing representations of America in an early 18th-century country house Sarah Covington (City University of New York), Environment, identity and memory in Cromwell’s Ireland Adam Lawrence (California), The sociology of plants in the 20th century

Chair: Miles Taylor (IHR) Ruth Morgan (Western Australia), A colonial climate: explorations of scale and variability in the south west of Australia, 1829–2007 Robert Poole (Cumbria), From Earthrise to Earth Day: the space programme and the eco-renaissance Robert Lambert (Nottingham), From persecution to sustainable tourism icon: an environmental history of the osprey in Britain, 1850-2010

3.15pmParallelpanelsWasteandtheenvironment:past,presentandfutureDeller Hall, Senate House

KnowingtheenvironmentSenate Room, Senate House

EnvironmentinthelongviewBeveridge Hall, Senate House



Environments 07

Chair: Felix Driver (RHUL) Neil Safier (British Columbia), Manioc in Mozambique? The ecological imperialism of governing an Atlantic empire James Delbourgo (Rutgers), Reading a herbarium as a mestizo object: imperial mixtures in books of nature Sujit Sivasundaram (LSE), Whose botanical garden? Buddhist and British attitudes to nature in Ceylon

Chair: Janet Waymark (Birkbeck/IHR) Leo Goretti (Reading), The making of ‘Chiantishire’: the history of the Chianti region in the 20th century Kaori O’Connor (UCL), Cockles, conservation and the contested coast of Wales

Chair: Elizabeth Williamson (VCH, IHR)

John Beckett (VCH, IHR), Natural History, local history, and the VCH: the origins of an intellectual tradition

Charles Watkins (Nottingham), Natural history in the early VCH Chris Lewis (IHR) and Paul Stamper (English Heritage), Motor-bicycling around England: architecture and archaeology in the early VCH

Harriet Ritvo (MIT), Shadows of things to come: preservation and progress in the 19th century Chair: Ludmilla Jordanova (KCL)

Theecologyofempire:mixingandmovingnature’sobjectsWolfson and Pollard rooms, Institute of Historical Research

Fish,wineandthepoliticsofconservationRoom103, Senate House

ExploringtheenvironmentwiththeearlyVictoriaCountyHistoryGermany room, Institute of Historical Research


Environments 08

5.45pmPolicyforumBeveridgeHall,SenateHouse

7.00pmEveningreceptionTowerBridgeIf you would like to attend this reception, please indicate this on your registration form as soon as possible as spaces are limited.

Canpolicymakerstodaylearnfromhistoriesoftheenvironment? Compère: Paul Warde, UEA Deborah Lamb, Policy Director, English Heritage Georgina Endfield, Honorary Secretary for Research, Royal Geographical Society Alastair Fitter, CBE, ecologist and Fellow of the Royal Society Jim Bamberg, author of the official history of BP Ian Christie, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, Green Alliance and co-author of Church and Earth (2009) Mark Levene, founder, Rescue! History and co-editor, History at the end of the world ? History, climate change and the possibility of closure (2010)



Friday 2 July 2010 09

09.30amPlenarylectureBeveridge Hall, Senate House

10.30amMorningteaandcoffee

Macmillan Hall, Senate House

11.00amParallelpanels

CampaigningfortheenvironmentinBritainandtheUnitedStates,19thand20thcenturies Beveridge Hall, Senate House

Foresthistory:transatlanticconnections Senate Room, Senate House

William Beinart (Oxford), Plant transfers, imperialism and biodiversity: a view from Africa Chair: Vivian Bickford-Smith (IHR)

The publishers’ exhibition will continue in the Crush Hall throughout the day.

Start of morning panel sessions

Chair: Roland Quinault (IHR) Charles-François Mathis (Paris), Campaigning for the environment in Britain in the 19th century Nick Crowson, Matthew Hilton, James McKay & Jean-François Mouhot (Birmingham), Environmental NGOs and environmental campaigning in Britain since 1945 John Brown & Joan Broome (Georgia Southern), Progressivism and the environment

Chair: Paul Warde (UEA) Jan Oosthoek (Newcastle), Conquering the Highlands: the arrival of ‘Canadian style’ large forestry in the Scottish Highlands, 1920–60 David Brownstein (British Columbia), British Columbia conifer seeds, 1912–40

Friday 2 July 2010 08

Resilientcommunities:locallevelresponsetodisastersonthreecontinents,1300–1900Deller Hall, Senate House

MeasuringenvironmentalimpactRoom103, Senate House

Migrantsinthelandscape:ethnicgroupsinnewenvironmentsWolfson and Pollard rooms, Institute of Historical Research

Chair: Sarah Palmer (Greenwich Maritime Institute) Greg Bankoff (Hull), Creating civil community: municipal governance and local responses to flood in the 19th-century Philippines Mary Carrick (Hull), Pestilence, flood and plague: climate deterioration and its effects on the Cistercian Abbey at Lewaux, Lower Hull Valley, in the first half of the 14th century Simon Smith (Hull), Volcanic hazard in a slave society: the 1812 eruption of Mount Soufrière in St Vincent

Chair: Matthew Bristow (VCH, IHR) John Hessler (Library of Congress), Disappearing worlds: an archival study of environmental change in the glaciers of the Mer de Glace using historical cartography and photographic surveys Wilko Graf von Hardenberg (Trento), Climate, fascism and ibex: a case study in historical animal population trends Chris Webb (York), Dead polecats: a Yorkshire perspective

Chair: David Feldman (Birkbeck) Marco Armiero (Universitat Autonoma Barcelona), From Garlic Hill to Goatsville: Italians in the American landscape Louis Warren (University California Davis), Migration and environmental crisis in frontier Nevada Angus Wright (California State University, Sacramento), Environmental degradation as a cause of migration

Environments 10


EventsA5 HeadlineSub header 7ptConflictandspace

Germany room, Institute of Historical Research

12.30pmLunchMacmillan Hall, Senate House

Filmshowing Beveridge Hall, Senate House

1.30pmParallelpanels

PopularprotestandmoralecologyinBritainWolfson and Pollard rooms, Institute of Historical Research

Chair: Helen Valier (Houston) Wendy Gagen (Exeter), Rebuilding a nation: disability and rurality after the First World War Ann Carden-Coyne (Manchester), Volatile spaces and the infrastructure of pain: patients and practitioners in military medicine, 1914–18 Julie Anderson (Kent), Disabled ex-servicemen and their home environment in the Second World War

Film showing of ‘The Last Parliament: how will you go down in history?’ fromGreen Alliance (duration: 10 minutes)

Start of afternoon panel sessions

Chair: Carl Griffin (QUB) Iain Robertson (Gloucestershire), Performing tasks in the Forest of Dean: the Warren James riots of 1831 Briony McDonagh (Nottingham), Landscapes in the making: enclosure and enclosure riots in early modern Yorkshire and Northamptonshire Katrina Navickas (Hertfordshire), Changing landscapes in northern England: popular protest in urban-rural hinterlands, 1812–34

Beyondthebattlefield:armybases,militarisationandenvironmentalchangeandcontinuityinBritain,FranceandtheUSRoom103, Senate House

MobilisingfortheenvironmentDeller Hall, Senate House

Arrangingtheenvironment:culturesofnaturalhistory,1750–1900Senate Room, Senate House

Chair: William Philpott (KCL) Tim Cole (Bristol), From Epynt to SENTA: the environmental history of Sennybridge Training Area, Wales, 1939–2009 Chris Pearson (Bristol), From battlefield to military base: the environmental history of Suippes Camp, France, 1914–2009 Peter Coates (Bristol), From toxic liabilities to ecological assets: the environmental history of Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats, Colorado

Chair: Paul Readman (KCL) Ariel Hessayon (Goldsmiths), Restoring the Garden of Eden in revolutionary England: the Diggers’ attitude towards the environment Marzia Maccaferri & Federico Paolini (Istoreco/Siena), The short 20th century of the environment, 1908–85: the environmental question and the ecological issue in Italy Jim Morrow (Nottingham Trent), Freak power and environmental politics

Chair: Emma Spary (UCL) Sarah Easterby-Smith (Warwick), Connoisseurship, commerce and nature, c.1760–93 Kate Smith (Warwick), Jutting teeth and gaping mouths: representations of nature, 1760–1800 Ellery Foutch (Pennsylvania), ‘Flowers that never fade’: artificial flowers in science, art and fancywork of the 19th century



Environments 13 Environments 14

EnvironmentsofempireinIndiaandAfricaBeveridge Hall, Senate House

Artisticenvironments:disabilityandimagemaking(postgraduatesession)Germany room, Institute of Historical Research


16.00pmAfternoontea

Chair: Vinita Damodaran (Sussex) Kate Showers (Sussex), Electrifying Africa: environmental consequences of technological innovation Rohan D’Souza (JNU, Delhi), Improvements for progress: hydraulic transformations in colonial south Asia Pauline von Hellerman (York), Black wattle, eucalyptus, pine: colonial tree planting and its legacies in the South Pare Mountains, Tanzania

Catherine Kudlick (University of California, Davis), Introduction and commentary Ann Roberts (Exeter), Painting by mouth: art, disability and Victorian fascination Tom White (Manchester), ‘The image of objectivity’: albinism, photographic environments and British eugenics research, 1905–14

John R McNeill (Georgetown), Mosquito empires Chair: Philip Murphy (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)

16.30pmParallelpanelsFloodingasanagentofchangeinmedievalandearlymodernEuropeGermany room, Institute of Historical Research

CollaborationandcommunicationbetweenenvironmentalhistoryscholarsBeveridge Hall, Senate House

GovernanceandtheenvironmentWolfson and Pollard rooms, Institute of Historical Research

Start of mid-afternoon panel sessions

Chair: James Galloway (IHR) Adriaan de Kraker (Free University of Amsterdam), Reconstruction, assessment and impact of high tides, storms and storm surges in the southern North Sea area, 1390–1690 Tim Soens (Antwerp), A managed retreat? Storm surges, landscape change and economic strategies in coastal Flanders, c.1300–c.1600 Gerrit Jasper Schenk (Technische Universität Darmstadt), Managing the risk of floods in the Upper Rhine Valley and Tuscany in the Renaissance, c.1270–1560 Christian Rohr (Salzburg), Floods of the Upper Danube river and its tributaries and their impact on urban economies, c.1350–1600

Chair: Jan Oosthoek (Newcastle) Alan MacEachern (Western Ontario), Of networks, archives and collaboration across the pond David Moon (Durham), The European Society for Environmental History and networks Harriet Ritvo (MIT), The facilitation of networks of environmental historians

Chair: Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck) Duncan Keenan-Jones (Macquarie), The Aqua Augusta and imperial control of water resources in the Bay of Naples in antiquity Vanessa Taylor & Sarah Palmer (Greenwich), Governance, stakeholders and the Thames environment, 1947–64 Kinan Ibrahim (Manchester), The environmental and land use history of an area damaged by the salt-based industries in Cheshire



Environments 15

Thenatureofthepublicgood:contestingresourcesinBritain,1600–1800 Deller Hall, Senate House

Cityclimatesandsmall-scalehistoriesSenate Room, Senate House

SustainabilityandresourcesintheearlymodernAtlanticworldRoom103, Senate House

18.00EveningreceptionandconferencecloseCommon room, Institute of Historical Research

Chair: Christopher Smout (St Andrews) William Cavert (Northwestern), Pollution or national asset: coal, smoke and the London economy, 1660–1700 Julie Bowring (Yale), Commons or common wealth? Drainage, enclosures and the debate over the public good in the early 17th century Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (Chicago), Peak coal 1789: the politics of ecological limits

Chair: Derek Keene (IHR) Vladimir Jankovic & Michael Hebbert (Manchester), Unwritten histories of urban weather James Rodger Fleming (Colby College), Fixing the urban sky Georgina Endfield (Nottingham), Diaries, hemerology and the construction of micro-climate narratives

Chair: Peter Lake (Vanderbilt) John Wing (City University of New York), Sustaining environmental control: the design and implementation of early modern state forestry in Spain, 1748–54 Laura Hollsten (Turku), ‘Gross mistakes and carelessness for the future’: Pehr Kalm’s observations of the use of natural resources in the Nordic countries, England and North America Paul Warde (UEA), Soil and society in Britain, c.1600–1770

Conference information 16

Registration You can pay securely online, or download a registration form to register by post, at www.history.ac.uk/aac2010/register

FeesThe full conference fee is £80 (reduced to £50 for IHR members) and £20 for students/unwaged/retired. One and half-day tickets are also available.

Delegatepacksandtickets Delegate packs and tickets should be collected at the registration desks in the Crush Hall.

RefreshmentsTea and coffee will be served during breaks in the Macmillan Hall. Lunches and the evening reception are included in your conference fee, but please indicate when registering if you would like to attend these.

Accessibilityandspecialneeds Attendees with special needs can contact Manjeet Sambi at [email protected] prior to the conference so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. For those who require this programme in alternative formats please contact [email protected] and we will be happy to assist you.

‘The Frozen Thames’, 1677



Conference information 17

Publishers’fairThis year’s conference will see a wide variety of major publishers exhibiting in Senate House over the two days. Take advantage of the chance to browse and purchase the latest history books at discounted rates. Attendees will also have the opportunity to speak to publishers and journal editors.

Lookingahead Health in History will be the theme of the IHR’s 80th Anglo-American Conference of Historians, 30 June-1 July 2011. A call for papers covering the history of medicine and of human society in sickness and in health will be issued later in the summer. For initial enquiries please contact: [email protected]

Acknowledgements 18

Adam Matthew celebrates 20 years

Help us celebrate our 20th anniversary and20 years of sponsoring the Anglo-AmericanConference by coming along to the EveningReception at Tower Bridge on 1st July.

Environmental History

Through such titles as Thoreau andAgriculture & Farming, Adam MatthewPublications has shown a long term interestin Environmental History.

Adam Matthew Digital has matched this withThe American West, which offersmagnificent resources on the changingAmerican landscape. These help todocument the decline of bison, the creationof National Parks and the transformative roleof agriculture.

We are also currently working on major newdigital resources covering Environment andSustainability and Global Commodities andwould be happy to discuss these with you andto hear your thoughts on potential sources toinclude.

Cañon, Jesus Maria from Nature by J.W. Audubon from The American West

Adam Matthew IHR advert April 2010:Layout 1 23/04/2010 11:21 Page 1

We would like to thank John Shakeshaft, Adam Matthew Digital and Elisabeth and Conor Kehoe for their generous support. We would also like to extend our thanks to Edinburgh University Press and Yale University Press for their contributions. Thanks are also due to those who we were unable to include in this programme.


Institute of Historical ResearchSenate House, Malet StreetLondon, WC1E 7HU T: +44 (0)207 862 8756

E: [email protected]

Getting around 19

Images: www.istockphoto.com/debibishop

www.istockphoto.com/sebchandler

www.istockphoto.com/mammuth www.istockphoto.com/faslooff

IHR

environments - institute of historical research | the … hessler (library of congress),...

Documents