Today’s blog by Neil Humphrey introduces his thought-provoking (and just a little heart-rending) new article on animal labour in Environment and History (online-first, April 2022), ‘Working Like a Dog: Canine Labour, Technological Unemployment, and Extinction in Industrializing England’. Is a dog a worker? Despite that most dogs in industrialised countries no longer work, many of … More Working Like a Dog: Rethinking Animal Labour Through the Industrious Turnspit Dog 

In today’s blog, Antonio Allegretti introduces his new book Policy and Practice in Rural Tanzania: Grazing, Fishing and Farming at the Local–Global Interface (The White Horse Press 2022). Pastoralists and other rural peoples in Africa and the Global South have historically been the target of development narratives and counternarratives, which have contributed to shape development … More Rurality in Tanzania: old and new meanings, values and practices at the local-global interface

Today’s blog introduces a group of young scholars working on environmental history in the North of England, spotlighting their work and giving a platform to the new Northern Environmental History Network (which also encompasses Scotland) Enter … another group of reformers, the environmental historians, who insist that we have got to go still deeper yet, … More The Future of Our Past: Voices from the Next Generation of Environmental Historians

As part of an occasional series aimed at enhancing accessibility, Jawad Daheur, editor of the Special Issue of Global Environment 15.1 (Feb. 2022) on ‘Extractive Peripheries in Europe‘ offers a French translation of the volume’s abstracts. The introduction is free to read (in English) L’extraction de ressources dans un espace marginal : renaissance minière et … More ABSTRACTS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT 15.1 (EXTRACTIVE PERIPHERIES IN EUROPE) IN FRENCH

In this blog, originally published as one of the inaugural Environment and History ‘Snapshots’ in February 2022, Shashank Deora and Pankaj Sekhsaria discuss rural to urban distress-migration in India and the role small watersheds might play as ‘infrastructures of desirable immobility‘ INTRODUCTION India has witnessed growing urbanisation and increased domestic rural-urban migration over the last … More Conceptualising Small Watersheds as Infrastructures of Immobility to Address Distress Induced Rural-Urban Migration in India

In today’s blog, Leonard Creutzburg gives a brief summary of the concept of Degrowth, which is the basis of his current article in Environmental Values, ‘Growing Trees for a Degrowth Society: An Approach to Switzerland’s Forest Sector’ “We are in the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy … More Degrowth – an emerging concept questioning the basis of our current economic model

This blog reporting three exciting regional environmental history conferences held in 2021 appeared as the ESEH Notepad in Environment and History 28.1 (February 2022). Congratulations to the convenors on these successful events! Istanbul Unbound: Environmental Approaches to the City Istanbul Research Institute – Pera Museum. K. Mehmet Kentel (on behalf of the organising committee) Istanbul … More ESEH Roundup of European Environmental History Conferences in 2021

To mark the publication of the inaugural issue of The Journal of Population and Sustainability (JP&S) with The White Horse Press, in this blog, JP&S editor David Samways questions the meaning of ‘sustainability’ and its implications for different populations.  About 15 years ago my partner and I installed a wood burning stove. At the time … More Sustainability of what and for whom?

In this blog, Samantha Vice of the University of the Witwatersrand introduces her article, aesthetically ‘Appreciating Animals: On The Abundant Herds’, just published online-first in Environmental Values Like the author, you might never have contemplated the beauty of cows, but now is the time to start. I never thought I would write about cows. But … More Aesthetically Appreciating Animals

In this blog, Floor Haalboom introduces her thought-provoking Environment and History article ‘Oceans and Landless Farms: Linking Southern and Northern Shadow Places of Industrial Livestock (1954–1975’, recently made Open Access. A ‘radical change’ in the diet of farm animals attracted the interest of the Dutch Health Council – a body of experts advising the Dutch … More Feeding Fish to Factory Farms