David Blackbourn highlights how environmental history reflects broader shifts in the historical discipline, such as the renewed focus on place, materiality, and “big history.” Environmental history has reintroduced the spatial dimension to history, engages with the natural sciences, and encourages analysis across multiple time scales, from deep history to immediate crises. The field faces conceptual challenges, such as balancing cultural and material perspectives, addressing nonhuman agency, and navigating the overlap with natural history.
David Blackbourne (Fri,) studied this question.