Robynne Mellor
Last fall, I designed and taught a course called The Global Environmental History of the Cold War. Throughout the semester, the students and I discussed the many ways that the bipolar conflict and the environment interacted between 1946 and 1989, as well as the various consequences of the Cold War that stretched beyond this temporal boundary. We covered topics ranging from the nuclear fuel cycle and the arms race, to dam building and defoliants associated with Cold War development theory and proxy wars. Throughout the course, I often relied on maps, especially when discussing issues such as “toxic layering” and geographic “sacrifice zones,” as well as how one might visually plot the intersections of Cold War containment and the environment.[1] These themes, along with Adam Rothman and Dagomar Degroot's maps, inspired me to add a mapping portion to the final class paper. The assignment was to choose one aspect of the way that the Cold War and the environment interacted, conduct independent research, and to plot some detail of the topic on a collaborative map with an annotation. In addition, I asked the students to write an argumentative paper about their chosen topic and, within the paper, to reflect upon what the process and result of mapping added to their understanding. As a learning tool, maps and mapping assignments can help students--along with those who look at the map--acknowledge the intricateness, breadth, and variation of the Cold War's relationship with the environment. The map the students created for the assignment was quite good and their engagement with the project was enthusiastic. One of the aims of the project was to encourage a broader understanding of the conflict. The history of the Cold War is often confined to diplomatic and political spaces, but a global mapping project shows how the conflict affected regions outside of these traditional areas of focus. Students were largely interested in aspects of the nuclear cycle and the space race, and focused predominantly on the activities of the two main Cold War powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Even so, their work incorporated many regions of these countries often left out of traditional Cold War narratives, along with frequently-overlooked areas such as northern Canada and the Pacific Islands. There was an unforseen issue with using a terrestrial map, however. As my students quickly pointed out to me as we discussed potential topics, there was no way to map the Cold War’s effects on the extraterrestrial environment. When examining the environmental history of the Cold War period and beyond, this project made it clear that a map of the world does not fully convey interactions between humans and their environment. I learned that I need to add more about the Outer Space to the course, and the mapping project, along with the student's work, helped to change my thinking. In addition, this mapping project detracts somewhat from the interconnectedness of the Cold War's effects, and their sometimes global scope. For example, it is difficult, if not impossible, to render effectively on a map the consequences of atmospheric testing. The structure also leads to a one-sided narrative, with the form encouraging students to focus on how humans impacted nature. It is much more difficult to plot the dynamism of the environment and its role in Cold War history. The map and the idea behind it is useful beyond the classroom, as well. As environmental historians, we often try to view history irrespective of political borders. The ability to zoom out and examine the global impact as a whole helps to better conceptualize the scale of historical moments such as the Cold War. My vision for this map is for it to be added to continually. There are many complex layers that the topic “the global environmental history of the Cold War” encompasses. To fully understand the true impact of the Cold War on the environment (and vice versa) I wold like to move forward with this same map, and have students (and possibly others) build upon it. [1] For more on dam building and containment, see Richard P. Tucker, “Containing Communism by Impounding Rivers: American Strategic Interests and the Globaal Soread of High Dams in the Early Cold War” in Environmental Histories of the Cold War, eds. J.R. McNeill and Corinna R. Unger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 139-163. For more on “toxic layering” in a Cold War context, see Magadalena E. Stawkowski, “‘I am a Radioactive Mutant’: Emergent biological subjectivities at Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site,” American Ethnologist 43, no. 1 (2016): 144-157.
Robynne Mellor is a PhD Candidate at Georgetown University who studies the intersection of environmental history and the Cold War. Her dissertation is comparatively examines uranium mining in the United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union.
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Georgetown had a particularly big presence at this year's American Society for Environmental History conference. Here are some reflections from three of our environmental historians:
Dagomar Degroot, assistant professor of environmental history: I first visited Chicago as a PhD student, while driving to the 2012 ASEH conference in nearby Madison, Wisconsin. Five years later, I returned as a Georgetown University assistant professor for this year’s ASEH conference. How quickly life can change! Scholarship, too. This year, I was fortunate to be part of two panels that advanced the frontier of environmental history in ways that, arguably, would have been hard to imagine in 2012. The first panel combined the insights of anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians all struggling to understand the environmental history of the North Atlantic, particularly its Arctic marine ecosystems. Papers drew on everything from oral traditions to protein sequencing to trace the coevolution of natural and human histories. The discussion that followed touched on topics that ranged from the steady disappearance of coastal “natural archives” in the far north to best practices in multidisciplinary collaboration. The second panel was all about the environmental history of outer space, an area of scholarship that has only recently gained momentum and acceptance in our field. Our papers explored the environmental history of Mars, the consequences of falling orbital debris, and the anthropology of exoplanets. Questions prompted us to think deeply about historical analogies between Earth and other worlds; the place of the Anthropocene in our research; and changing paradigms in science. It was telling that nobody questioned whether environments beyond Earth actually belong in environmental history. Something new, it seems, is orbiting the Sun. Robynne Mellor, PhD candidate in environmental history: This year’s ASEH was an exciting opportunity for me to engage with scholars interested in the same themes, ideas, and topics as I am. I especially enjoyed all the ways in which the panel participants discussed the history of resource extraction and its effects on the environment and surrounding populations. The panelists addressed the impacts on the environment associated with mines from Ontario and Minnesota to Murmansk, and there is growing interest in creating a network of environmental historians of resource extraction, something about which I am particularly excited. I was also able to participate in conversations about Canadian, U.S., and Soviet environmental history, all areas in which I am interested, and broaden my horizons as part of lively discussions on “new materialism” and what it means for environmental history, from the understanding of carcinogens to dinosaur fossils. Finally, hearing Bill Cronon’s retrospective on Nature’s Metropolis while eating Chicago mix popcorn in Chicago was a great way to end the weekend. Jackson Perry, PhD candidate in environmental history: Attending ASEH this year encouraged me to think a lot about questions, answers, and stories, as I move from comprehensive exams to dissertation research this spring. Looking back at coursework and exams, the imperative to reach a conclusion about a debate in historiography or to advance a particular interpretation of history based on original research was strong. The time between question and answer was sometimes as short as a few seconds. The most engaging panels at ASEH meanwhile emphasized questions more than answers. They inspired curiosity and open-ended discussion of, say, the relationship between colonial and post-colonial development policy, or of linear and cyclical aspects of Mediterranean environmental history. What sticks in my mind from the weekend’s papers were the stories they offered, of a sick cattle herd downwind of a nuclear testing range in New Mexico, or of the dreams of white South Africans about diverting rivers into the Kalahari Desert for agricultural expansion in the early twentieth century. Beyond particular topical insights, the major refrains of my experience at ASEH 2017 were the value of unanswered questions and hypotheses in our research and our collaborative work, and the power of storytelling as a medium of scholarly communication. Two days before world leaders converged to Marrakech for the U.N. climate summit, a smaller and cozier meeting took place in Washington, DC with a shared interest in, and concern for, humanity’s relationship with the rest of nature. The meeting was the first conference for graduate students that Georgetown University hosted on world environmental history, titled: “Humanity & Other Forms of Life: Environmental Histories of the World.” The conference took place at the Mortara Center for International Studies on a cold Saturday (November 5) and featured the work of students from eight universities (Cornell, Georgetown, Indiana, NYU, Ohio State, Princeton, Stony Brook, and Yale). Environmental history graduate students at Georgetown organized the event with generous support from the Georgetown Institute for Global History, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Provost Office, and the Mortara Center. Doctoral candidate Faisal Husain masterminded the day’s events, supported by several students and faculty members. It was a polished, friendly conference that covered an impressive range of topics with grace and thematic cohesion. The first panel covered waterscapes in nineteenth century British-controlled Bengal, the Ottoman Empire, and Great Lakes region during the early twentieth century. All three papers explored the ways in which changing aquatic environments affect how the people living in those watersheds relate to their governments, and vice versa. They also touched on themes of sovereignty and knowledge creation in interesting ways. In recent years, the environmental history of military conflict has grown and deepened. The second panel, “Terrains of Medieval Warfare” showed new ways that the sub-field can be expanded. The papers, covering three different continents and ambitious time scales, were thoughtful treatments of how military leaders used their surroundings to obstruct enemies, control civilian populations, and supervise conquered spaces. The third panel was entirely modern, and as geographically diverse as the others. The panelists’ work examined ways in which technological sophistication changed states’ attempts to control animals, crops and even people, with careful analysis of the language and cultural discourse of control and government. In recent years, the environmental history of military conflict has grown and deepened. Over the course of the weekend, faculty reflected on the presented research as panelists, commentators, and in informal conversations. Comments from Professors De Luna and McNeill presented a central tension of the historians’ mission: balancing the need to place our specific research in a broad enough context that others can see its relevance, and the need to include all the people and natural phenomena that shape events, not only the literate, easily-accessible actors. Or, in its most basic form, the juggling of “So, what?” and “What of . . .?” They agreed that researchers should strive to find a ‘sweet spot’ that encompasses a portrait of human and non-human experience that is as detailed and accurate as possible, without abandoning the challenges of working with larger time- and space scales and of placing lived experience in broad context. Professors Degroot and Newfield shared useful anecdotes and advice about how to find and work effectively with scientists, a process they both described as difficult but ultimately rewarding. For example, Prof. Degroot encouraged students to submit papers to science conference and attend them to form personal connections. He noted that historians can help scientists understand how their data are meaningful in broader a social context. Prof. Newfield noted that contacting the lead authors of recent publication on a given subject is often a good way to find possible collaborators. They recommended exploring sciencedirect.com and the NSF’s REU program, which gives students the opportunity to try scientific research firsthand. The experience of these two professors and the panelists’ research led to some thought-provoking discussions of methodology, particularly the rise of integrated STS/HS/EH (Science and Technology Studies/History of Science/Environmental History) scholarship, and the challenges (and possibilities) of combining natural proxy data with documentary evidence. Students also took the opportunity to quiz Environmental History editor Prof. Lisa Brady about journals, publishing and her new research into the environmental history of modern warfare in the Korean Peninsula. She noted that her editorial work has reinforced her conviction that every piece of writing needs multiple revisions. For doctoral students thinking about submitting journal articles, she provided the following tips:
In this quick overview of our first student-run conference, we’ve tried to include details of those parts of the discussions that might be useful to fellow graduate students. Feel free to get in touch with us by email or social media if you’re interested in following up with any of the participants, or making your own conference! War, Environment, and the Ottoman-Habsburg Frontier: An interview with Prof. Gábor Ágoston10/31/2016
The Ottoman History Podcast has published an interview with Dr. Gábor Ágoston, associate professor of history at Georgetown and a specialist in the history of the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Graham Auman Pitts and doctoral candidate Faisal Husain conducted the interview, which is a part of OHP's forthcoming 'Political Ecologies' series.
'Whereas military histories once focused narrowly on armies, battles, and technologies, the new approach to military history emphasizes how armies and navies were linked to issues such as political economy, gender, and environment. In this episode, we sit down with Gábor Ágoston to discuss the principal issues concerning the relationship between the Ottoman-Habsburg military frontier in Hungary and the environmental history of the early modern period. From the battle of Mohacs in 1526, through the dramatic battle of Vienna 1683, and until the Treaty of Sistova 1791, the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier was the site of fighting, fortification, and mobilization. In our conversation, we consider the environmental dimensions of these centuries of conflict and contact, focusing on how the military revolution transformed the way in which armies used and managed resources and the role of both anthropogenic and climatic factors in reshaping the Hungarian landscape.' You can stream the podcast below via Soundcloud, or download it in iTunes or Google Play. The blog of the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences at Rice University has published an interview with Georgetown Professor J.R. McNeill, on his participation in the Anthropocene Working Group, which recently recommended the recognition of the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch to the International Geological Congress. The conversation also addressed the question of the Anthropocene as a concept for historians and humanities scholars more broadly. Dr. McNeill is the author of several publications on the subject of the Anthropocene, most recently The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945, co-authored with Peter Engelke.
The start of the interview is featured below. For the complete conversation, please visit the CENHS blog. --- Kevin MacDonnell: The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) is made up of a couple of dozen scholars from across the natural and human sciences, ranging from atmospheric chemists to geologists to historians like yourself. What do you think led the AWG to seek out an interdisciplinary collective? The work of identifying a so-called ‘golden spike’ could presumably be carried out by a team of geologists or paleobiologists, yet the AWG is nonetheless a mixed bag of scholars from numerous fields. Why do you think that is? J. R. McNeill: I have never been consulted about who should be invited to take part and it has never been clear to me how it is one is chosen. In my own case, the chair of the AWG (Jan Zalaciewicz) asked me personally to join, but I did not ask him why he did so. It happened after we met at a conference some years ago. And he was aware I had co-authored some pieces with Crutzen. Whether he consulted anyone before asking me to join, I do not know. I am aware only of the following: the core of the group are stratigraphers and geologists, mainly from Britain. By the time I joined, it already included a handful of archeologists, soil scientists, and even one lawyer. No other social scientists so far as I know, but I could easily be wrong (I haven’t bothered charting the evolution of the membership). Not too long after I joined, another historian (Naomi Oreskes) also joined. At some point the AWG leadership decided to seek out members from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and to seek out women who might join. That expanded the membership a fair bit, although I couldn’t tell you by how much. And then, it could be said, there are members and there are members. Some of them never take part in the email discussions; some are commenting on every issue that comes up. The center of gravity of the group, however, is firmly in Britain and in stratigraphy/geology. |
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