Global Ideas – Local Research. Looking for a Cultural Turn in Environmental History. A Review Article
Environmental history has regarded itself as one of the last fields of historical research free from postmodern doubts. This article collects and reviews new trends in German and international environmental history that hint at a shift of paradigm in this respect. It focuses on studies on the 18th to early 20th centuries and possible intersections to global history approaches, social history of knowledge and science (esp. medicine) as well as historical cultural anthropology. Studies on the history of animal diseases in Africa, on Indian forest history as well as the American wilderness debate set examples and enable German environmental history to broaden its perspective. They emphasize the impact of a global exchange of ideas and practices, of flora and fauna, and of human experience. They are particularly sensitive to non-eurocentric approaches, to subaltern voices, to environmental conflicts, and to local environmental knowledge in contrast to modern scientific knowledge. Taking up these leads environmental history is capable to communicate with current trends in mainstream historical research and to establish the study of human-nature-interaction as a central part of historiography. |
