The American Environment Revisited

Environmental Historical Geographies of the United States

Edited by Geoffrey L. Buckley Ohio University, Yolonda Youngs

Publication date:

01 March 2018

Length of book:

382 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

239x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781442269965

This innovative book provides a dynamic—and often surprising—view of the range of environmental issues facing the United States today. A distinguished group of scholars examines the growing temporal, spatial, and thematic breadth of topics historical geographers are now exploring. Seventeen original chapters examine topics such as forest conservation, mining landscapes, urban environment justice, solid waste, exotic species, environmental photography, national and state park management, recreation and tourism, and pest control. Commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the seminal work The American Environment: Interpretations of Past Geographies, the book clearly shows much has changed since 1992. Indeed, not only has the range of issues expanded, but an increasing number of geographers are forging links with environmental historians, promoting a level of intellectual cross-fertilization that benefits both disciplines. As a result, environmental historical geographies today are richer and more diverse than ever. The American Environment Revisited offers a comprehensive overview that gives both specialist and general readers a fascinating look at our changing relationships with nature over time.
The book is worth reading whether you are a devotee of environmental historical geography or not quite sure you’ve heard of this subfield of the larger discipline . . . Buckley and Youngs accomplish quite a bit more than simply revisiting the U.S. environment. They challenge us in diverse ways to rethink our human relationship with a broadly construed ‘nature,’ and they remind us how richly connected history and contemporary experience remain. The contributing authors, as a whole, succeed nicely in situating their work within a tradition of environmental historical geography while also extending the boundaries of this field to redefine and reinvigorate it. As DeLyser notes in the book’s final chapter, ‘Environments of the Imagination,’ these environments—and perhaps more ambitiously, the ideas of the book—‘are everywhere with us’ (p. 332). It’s refreshing to find a resource that reminds us why it is important to continue to engage as fully as possible with them.