Chapter 4

Environmental History: Object of Study and Methodology

Petra J.E.M. van Dam and S. Wybren Verstegen

Contents is the case with historical studies of health and sanita-

tion, for example, subjects traditionally studied as part of
4.1 Introduction ................................................................ 25
social history (Corbain 1982). Similarly, some aspects
4.2 Object of Study and Approaches .............................. 25 of economic history and the history of technology are
4.3 Periodisation ............................................................... 26 today studied within the context of environmental his-
tory. In European historiography much has been writ-
4.4 Sources and Methodology ......................................... 28
ten about whaling, (over)fishing, deforestation, erosion
4.5 Conclusion .................................................................. 30 and overgrazing, for example. The contemporary envi-
References ............................................................................ 30 ronmental debate has given these older studies new
political relevance; as they are re-read from an envi-
ronmental rather than economic or geographic
perspective.
4.1 Introduction English historians down the ages have written about
deforestation, for example, about the transition from
Environmental history (in Europe also commonly charcoal to coal as a fuel, the smog it caused and the
named ecological history) emerged as a separate sub- bronchitis (or ‘British disease’) it gave rise to, and the
discipline of environmental science in the 1980s. cultural changes brought on by the new coal era
Although there had been several earlier historical stud- (Wilkinson, in Worster 1988). In Germany, the Age of
ies on the state of the environment, many spurred by Romance had its influence on forest and landscape
the first report to the Club of Rome and the first oil studies. Mining, pollution and the country’s industri-
crisis of the 1970s (Van Zon 1993), it was in the 1980s alisation in the 19th century provide examples of
that environmental history first began to develop as a themes of long-standing academic interest to histori-
dynamic field of research in its own right, pulling ever ans that were given a new impulse with the coming of
more themes into its orbit as the scope of the environ- environmental history. In a similar vein, the renowned
mental debate broadened (Winniwarter et al. 2004). French Annales school had been studying climate and
While early environmental history studies were landscape history for many decades, and it was no
infused mainly by concerns about pollution and resource accident that Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie became one
depletion, today even climate history falls within its of the driving forces behind the Studies in Environmental
province. One of the consequences of this dynamic, in History series published by Cambridge University Press.
a sense ‘cyclonic’, development is that a variety of
longer-standing fields of study are now subsumed
under the umbrella term ‘environmental history’. Such
4.2 Object of Study and Approaches

Petra.J. E. M. van Dam (*

ü)
Environmental History Amsterdam Institute for Heritage and
At first environmental historians described their object
Society VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands of study simply as the history of environmental themes
e-mail: [email protected] such as pollution, natural resource depletion and natural

Jan J. Boersema and Lucas Reijnders (eds.), Principles of Environmental Sciences, 25

© Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009
26 P.J.E.M. van Dam and S.W. Verstegen

beauty (Clapp 1994). They hoped to gain a better bottom-up approach starts from the premise that the
insight into such problems, as the past provides exam- natural world establishes the conditions for human life,
ples of both sustainable and unsustainable behaviour. and can be termed the ecocentric approach. It is based
More recently, environmental history seems to have largely on the methods developed by the French school
taken one step back from its object, becoming the story of historians grouped around the journal Annales. It
of environmental change, its human causes and conse- examines the role of nature in human life at three lev-
quences (McNeill 2000). Through their studies, histori- els: nature (landscape), human modes of production
ans have become more conscious of a certain ‘relativity’ and power, and mentality (Worster 1988). Such histori-
affecting perceptions of environmental problems over ans discern three levels of time. At the level of the his-
time. To evaluate environmental changes as good or tory of nature, changes in nature tend to be so slow that
bad, one must first define the criteria being used: good commonly humans barely perceive those as changes.
or bad for whom or what, for which people or species, Nature, thus, seems a constant in human histories. At
and so on? the second level developments are very slow: the secu-
Studies in environmental history can be classified lar trend of prices and wages, for instance, has a cycle
in different ways. One type of study traces the his- expressed in centuries. At the third level, that of ideas
tory of particular environmental problems like urban and political history, things change very quickly, with a
and industrial pollution, following one of two basic pace of years or even days. However, new research
approaches. Either one starts in the present and seeks findings from archaeology and other palaeo-sciences
to identify the problem’s origins in the past point to the fact that even so-called undisturbed nature,
(Poulussen1987). Or, conversely, one studies past at the first level, was often influenced by humans at a
environmental problems and investigates whether or very early stage reaching back into prehistory. One
not they persisted later, and if so their circumstances example here is the impact of early American Indians
and dynamics. Towns, for example, have long wit- setting fire to the landscape to create open forests more
nessed periods of heavy pollution and had in most conducive to hunting (Budiansky 1995). In other environ-
cases found adequate solutions, often applied for many ments early changes have been even more profound, as in
centuries. Today’s pollution problems are therefore not the case of wetlands, where human occupation only
the direct result of their historical antecedents, but became feasible after drainage (Van Dam 2002a).
caused by relatively new changes. Other examples of As a result a top-down or anthropocentric approach,
historical environmental problems include the impact starting at the level of ideas, has been gaining ground
of the salt industry’s massive fuel needs and overgraz- in recent years (Van Zanden and Verstegen 1993).
ing by sheep, which created treeless heath land (Jäger Research within this category includes the study of
1994). With time, this came to be seen in terms of fuel changing conceptions of nature since the Middle Ages,
shortage and dangerous erosion. Today, however, the for example. Studying the history of ideas has brought
heather-clad landscapes are highly valued nature con- to light the roots of environmental thinking and the
servation areas. More generally, in contrast to today links with (the protection of) nature and romanticism
people in the past regarded ‘wild’ nature as unpleasant, (Bramwell 1989). Historians have, for example, redis-
of little use and even dangerous, and preferably to be covered the influence of the ‘founding fathers’ of mod-
conquered, reclaimed and ‘civilised.’ It is thus a soci- ern environmental thinking. These include, in the
ety’s value system that determines which environmen- United States, such people as George Perkins Marsh,
tal changes are perceived as problems and which are John Muir and Henry Thoreau, and, in Europe, Ernst
not. This first category of environmental history stud- Haeckel, Rudolf Steiner and Frederik van Eeden.
ies also includes those that are concerned with histori-
cal aspects of solutions to environmental problems.
There has thus been a recent spate of research into how
what we now call ‘sustainability’ was conceived by 4.3 Periodisation
societies in the past (e.g. Van Zon 2002).
Environmental history studies can also be classified In endeavouring to structure complex historical pro-
according to how authors conceive of the relationship cesses, historians generally divide history into bounded
between nature, the material world and ideas. The periods. It is a means to differentiate between continuity
4 Environmental History: Object of Study and Methodology 27

and change. The name of the period often reflects the commercialisation of agriculture, starting in Flanders
essential new change, such as the period of the Industrial in Late Medieval times, and the specialisation of agri-
Revolution, of the Enlightenment, or of Ecological culture, in particular the transition from grain grow-
Imperialism. One of the key issues in this process of ing to wool production for the textile industry in
‘periodisation’ is which historical developments are to England from the 17th century onwards, was the
be deemed more important: political, economic, social result of agricultural intensification combined with a
or cultural changes. Also essential is the question new international division of labour. It freed up huge
whether the change is to be seen as a quantitative one, numbers of now landless labourers for the new coal-
including numbers of people affected, kilojoules used based industry. So the 1800 boundary is not just about
or pollution units emitted, say, or qualitative, as with the increasing energy potential of society, but also
the impact of spiritual or political leaders, innovations about large-scale social and economic transforma-
or introduction of new methods of payment in the econ- tions, including the rise of industries and large cities,
omy (first money instead of goods, now the internet). new crops and division of labour in the countryside
The period boundaries taken will depend on how the and peasant migration (Van Dam 2002b).
object of study is defined. Environmental historians Yet future historians may see the period from 1800
examining the history of energy, for example, will not to 1950 as merely the first, introductory phase of the
want to restrict their studies to a history of energy sys- fossil fuel era in Europe. The transition to oil after the
tems focusing solely on types of energy resource and Second World War may prove to be even more impor-
energy converters and their respective efficiencies. This tant. It made enormous amounts of energy available at
would lead to an overly simplistic periodisation based a very cheap price. Today’s global air and water pollu-
on calculations of the number of joules available to a tion are to a large extent due to the environmental dis-
society. The approach taken in environmental history persion of myriad synthetic substances produced from
therefore includes the particular structures of a society or with the aid of oil. The mass production of con-
at a specified moment in time, within which conversion sumer items made of novel materials and fabrics, the
technologies are created and developed and in which explosive rise of the use of packaging and the emis-
energy is appropriated for particular ends. This implies sions of traffic and the manufacturing industry are
that social, technological, political, economic, cultural among the many petroleum-related developments that
and cognitive dimensions must all be taken into account over the past five decades have had such a far-reaching
in the historical narrative (Sieferle 2001). impact on the natural environment (Pfister 1995). Once
In Europe, the diffusion of large-scale coal burn- more, though, these effects cannot be seen in isolation
ing was a key step in the transition from the solar to from a number of major social and economic changes,
the fossil era. This is a major item in Chapter 5. including the rise of new technology, inspired by space
Previously, the total amount of energy available in a and arms technology. According to McNeill (2000), it
given landscape was defined to a large extent by total was nation-states that played a key incentive role in
surface area. Wood, wind and water – all forms of this respect.
energy deriving ultimately from the sun – are limited The history of the introduction of foreign species of
in their availability per unit time, although ultimately plants and animals is also of interest in the context of
infinite. As fossil fuels became widely available, environmental periodisation. One of the key questions
energy production and consumption rose dramati- facing historians here is whether the rising number of
cally. An important period in this respect is the new species introductions is in itself significant (quan-
European Industrial Revolution of the 18th century titative change), or whether it is more important to
that started in England. By 1800, the capacity of the identify specific plants and animals or assemblages
first steam engines was already equivalent to 200 that have caused particular changes to ecosystems,
labourers, and by 1900 they had become 30 times including the role of human action therein (structural,
more powerful still (McNeill 2000). Although agri- qualitative change).
culture, industry and transportation profited tremen- The botanical historian traditionally takes the
dously from the coal-based energy systems, there year 1500 as marking the beginning of a new era.
were also other socio-economic developments of Prior to that date a few plants had been introduced
great influence on the Industrial Revolution. The one by one from Southern Europe, most of them
28 P.J.E.M. van Dam and S.W. Verstegen

originating from Asia. In many cases monastery Although 1500 may remain an important boundary
gardens and castle estates had served as reserves for for the introduction of new species, because of the
these so-called archaeophytes. From excavations as massive new influx of species and the large-scale
well as the first botanical treatises of the 11th and changes effected, the late 20th century clearly repre-
12th centuries we know of newly introduced fruit- sents a new era of bio-invasion. Structural changes in
bearing plants and medicinal herbs. With the scien- society, such as globalised mass transportation of pas-
tific expeditions to the Americas and to East Asia sengers (chartered flights) and goods (container ships)
that began around 1500, however, many hundreds of have created hitherto unknown opportunities for bio-
new plants were introduced to Europe. These so- logical exchange. Thus, water recycled from the bal-
called neophytes became established in the botanical last tanks of ocean-going vessels has brought about a
gardens of universities and, from the 17th century partial homogenisation of the world’s coastal, harbour
onwards, diffused across the new estates of the nobil- and estuarial species, each tank displacing some
ity and urban elites. They include many decorative 3,000–4,000 water organisms each time it is evacuated
species still popular in homes and gardens today. (McNeill 2000).
Other, economically important crop species intro- In summary, then, establishing historical watersheds
duced during this period include tomatoes, maize depends on the object of the study and the perspe-
and potatoes (Dirkx 2001; Van Dam 2002b). ctive taken, with different research questions requiring
Ecological historians frame all cases of species different periodisations.
introduction tightly into human history and they take a
broad perspective that focuses on the complex web of
interactive relationships among humans, animals,
plants and micro-biota (Beinart and Middleton 2004). 4.4 Sources and Methodology
For as long as Europeans have explored, conquered
and migrated between continents, they have exchanged, The classic sources of information for the historian,
wittingly or unwittingly, both beneficial and obnox- environmental or otherwise, are texts. As the content of
ious organisms. Crosby (1986) has classified the period a text is generally determined by its origins, the histo-
between 900 and 1900, from the time of the Vikings rian prefers to consult different types of source, resem-
and the Crusaders through to the modern industrial era, bling a detective hearing a series of witnesses. The
as an era of ‘ecological imperialism’. One of the most administrative documents of public authorities have
devastating combinations of natural organisms and survived in large numbers and wide variety. ‘Normative’
human practices will be familiar to all: the introduc- sources, i.e. documents setting some form of standards,
tion into the indigenous population of Latin America originate at central, regional and local levels of gover-
of hitherto unknown childhood diseases like measles nance and include laws, legal decisions and police
and smallpox in the 16th century, which in decimating ordinances. Another type of administrative sources are
their numbers by about 75% (Mc Neill 1976; Slicher documents arising during ‘day-to-day routine’, such as
van Bath 1992) cleared the way for later conquest and minutes of meetings, surveying reports, the annual
colonisation by European settlers. accounts of landowners and pollution concessions. The
A second example is the introduction of European latter sources are often serial in character: the form of
cattle and their fodder plants to the New World. The the document remains constant, making the type of data
American pampas and prairie grasses could not with- predictable, but with contents (mainly figures) chang-
stand the trampling of the new breeds of cattle and were ing over time, reflecting economic cycles or changing
forced into retreat. Meanwhile, the seeds of aggressive attitudes. Since many serial sources come in large
European grasses and weeds, such as white clover quantities going back hundreds of years, they require a
(Trifolium retens), was carried by cattle and trading statistical approach (Bayerl et al. 1997; Hahn and Reith
horses in their pelts and transported in the animals’ 2001; Verbruggen 2002).
hooves and soon spread like wildfire. By 1877, so The loss of forests after the Middle Ages is a good
archives tell us, no less than 153 European plants were example of how sources from various origins sustain
found in the province of Buenos Aires alone, the list different arguments. From 1500 onwards, all over
headed by the ubiquitous white clover (Crosby 1986). Europe early modern states issued forest ordinances in
4 Environmental History: Object of Study and Methodology 29

order to protect timber resources and game. Forests if the aim is to write a history of environmental ideas
were closed off and a hierarchical system of control and awareness. Many preachers, and later doctors and
and management was set up under supervision of the scientists, made daily observations of the stars, the
authorities. Henceforth, peasants were to pay for use weather and seasonal changes in flora and fauna, occa-
of the forest and its products, with severe penalties sionally including earthquakes, storm tides and other
imposed on those transgressing the new rules. However, natural disasters. Prior to our era, most scientists were
studies of local institutional arrangements reveal that in touch with an extensive network of correspondents,
in the Middle Ages peasant communities managed for- and many of their letters survive in private archives.
ests as common pool resources quite well as an inte- One of the things these sources show us is how the
gral part of their farming economy. Examination of medieval notion that the world was created by God,
administrative documents shows that in the 16th cen- with nature a kind of ‘picture book’ to the Bible, started
tury states began to protect and promote new fuel- to compete with more empirical, ‘mechanical’ notions
intensive industries such as ore smelting and salt of nature, in particular in the Age of Scientific
distillation. The taxes levied on these new industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, 1650–1800. These
products were very welcome in the process of (mili- discussions paved the way and opened minds for the
tary and bureaucratic) state formation. Research into great revolution of the 19th century: Darwin’s new
the minutes of the ‘Holthinge’ or ‘holthink’, the meet- evolutionary paradigm. Evolution gave time a place in
ings of the German forest communities, shows that the life sciences and gave ecology a historical charac-
local institutional arrangements started to lose their ter (Thomas 1983; Kempe and Rohr 2003).
effectiveness quite independently of state action. There is an enormous body of historical sources in
A struggle between the old, locally rooted peasants existence. Written sources kept in archives are usually
and new, market-oriented agricultural entrepreneurs referred to in terms of shelf length: prior to 1800 in
explains the breakdown of local systems controlling metres and subsequently in kilometres. Since histori-
the use of the forests. Analysis of the pollen from par- ans can never do more than examine a finite sample of
ticular forests shows that trees favoured by cattle dis- the material available to them, it makes no great differ-
appeared first, while contemporary paintings reveal ence that the number of written sources has expanded
that these forests lacked their natural undergrowth so tremendously since the Second World War, due in
(Dirkx 1998; Sonnlechner and Winiwarter 1999; part to the use of the typewriter and photocopier. More
Radkau 2002; De Moor et al. 2002; Ward 2003). important, though, are the major revolutions in source
Summarising, then, the historical phenomenon of production that have taken place over the last decade
forest destruction can be attributed to several sets of or so. With the rise of electronic communications,
explanations, depending on the approach and the type commonplace and day-to-day sources such as letters
of source consulted. The political historian will focus and minutes, and draft versions of normative docu-
on state formation and see forest degradation as an ments revealing discussions and changes in environ-
example of failed resource policy, while the economic mental awareness and changes in monitoring rules,
historian will see forest degradation as an effect of the often disappear before ever reaching the archives.
rise of the market, the commercialisation of agricultural Written sources are not all that interest environmen-
production and demographic growth. The environmen- tal historians, though. They may also consult pollen
tal historian will investigate the biological aspects of diagrams, for example, which provide valuable infor-
forest destruction: which species first declined, and was mation on former landscapes based on the dispersion
fuelwood gathering or overgrazing the more important of fossilised pollen in geological sediments. Similarly,
factor of destruction? Then he or she will assess the tree rings, ice cores and isotopes in peat bogs and other
extent to which political, economical, social, techno- deposits can provide the researcher with detailed
logical and cultural developments contributed to either information on climate change (see Chapter 3). Climate
fuelwood consumption or (over)grazing. history is in fact the first historical field to have
Besides the various types of administrative sources attempted to cross the disciplinary boundary between
described, a very different group of historical sources the humanities and the natural sciences (Pfister 2001).
are diaries, logbooks, letters and other sources of a At the same time, though, the use of non-written
personal or individual nature. Such sources are excellent sources poses major challenges. There are two options
30 P.J.E.M. van Dam and S.W. Verstegen

open to historians. They can simply rely on the reports profound understanding of environmental problems. It
of other historical researchers: palynologists (pollen has shown, for example, that environmental problems
experts), historical geographers, palaeozoologists, change over time. They arise as a consequence of large-
geologists or archaeologists. Alternatively, they may scale historical changes in society, be they political,
be an expert in more than one field and able to inter- social, economic, technological, cultural, or indeed a
pret specialist data themselves. As nobody is profi- blend of these. Environmental history has demonstrated
cient in all disciplines, however, the basic problem that current environmental problems and solutions are
remains. As a consequence, interdisciplinary coopera- neither unique nor new. Problems are context-dependent
tion is a key element of every ecological history and time-dependent. They require specific solutions,
research project. (A classic example of an interdisci- geared to the specific situation. Solutions from one
plinary survey is Simmons 1989). It should also be period or culture cannot always be applied to others,
noted that an important aspect of all such studies is the because so many basic parameters vary with time, just
use of everyday language, to facilitate communication as they vary from one place to another. Environmental
(Bayerl et al. 1997). history provides important examples of both sustain-
A successful example of interdisciplinary research able and unsustainable behaviour over the ages and
concerns the environmental history of fish, fisheries and how such behaviour relates to the ideas of a culture.
fish consumption. Lists of fish in the annals of abbeys It demonstrates, in short, that for understanding and
and kitchen records of palaces, abbeys and urban hospi- ultimately solving today’s environmental problems,
tals reflect the assemblages of living species, destined knowledge of both the material and the mental facets of
for the pot or otherwise, as well as their relative rarity or the past is indispensable.
abundance in a specific area. In some cases, identifica-
tion of fish bones found in pits and kitchen floors in
excavated settlements can yield confirmatory data on
assemblages and distribution. Such archaeological data References
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