Michael Lewis

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Michael Lewis | Transformative Environmental History | Environmental History, 10.1 | The History Cooperative

Anniversary Forum

Transformative Environmental History

IN THE LAST thirty years the first generations of scholars to call themselves "environmental historians" succeeded in transforming the larger historical discipline and in creating a research agenda that shows no signs of losing its steam. I have every confidence that the next thirty years will continue to see environmental historians working in the productive niches opened up by these pioneers. A new research agenda or focus for the field is not needed in order to maintain its viability. Environmental history has professionalized—we have a thriving journal, vibrant annual conferences (with a somewhat predictable range of panel themes), an ALCS-recognized professional society, and tenure-track positions devoted to environmental history at a growing number of universities. Careers can, have, and will be made by participating in this "normal" environmental history.

We should aspire to more than viability for environmental history, though. As we look ahead to the next thirty years, we might think about supplementing, not replacing, the productive lines of inquiry that all of us are familiar with and most of us have worked along. To that end, I can suggest three paths we might continue to explore—for none of these ideas are novel, but neither are they the dominant trend in our discipline at the moment: We must think more globally, embrace interdisciplinary work, and we must write more synthetic histories. If we succeed in doing so, I suspect that we will continue in the grandest tradition of our predecessors as transformative influences within the larger historical discipline, and we will minimize the risk of environmental history becoming an increasingly specialized and inward-looking sub-field with our own language, our own arguments, and our own (limited) audience.

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