Environmental history and knowledge at the Yale conference

Last weekend we took the train up to New Haven, for Yale University's Northeast Environmental History Conference, organized by Paul Sabin.  It was my first visit to Yale (which was a bit overdue, since the Yale press was kind enough to publish my first book, 17 years ago).  Lovely campus.

Students presented a terrific array of papers -- a good sample of current work in American environmental history.  The papers were diverse in place and time � ranging from America's War of Independence, to the Ottoman Empire, to India, the Brazilian Amazon, and the world's oceans.  But one aspect I found especially interesting was the attention devoted to knowledge as a category of historical analysis.

I've always seen environmental history and the history of science as (potential) allies.  Their relation sort of defines my own career path, which started with history of science and gradually shifted towards environmental history (see here, here, hereand here as examples of blog posts on science and environmental history).

But it seems only quite recently that environmental historians have really taken on board the notion that knowledge requires focused historical analysis, alongside power, politics, economics, and the movements and transformations of matter.  So it was great to see this happening at this conference.

Here is some of what we heard.  Steven Elliott (Temple) discussed the environmental history of America's War of Independence, noting the role of environmental knowledge in the Continental Army's selection of encampment sites.  Faisal Husain (Georgetown) used the flood pulse concept (which describes the relation between a river and its flood plain) to explain some aspects of the history of the Euphrates River during the Ottoman Empire.  Matthew Shutzer (New York University) examined the role of geological knowledge (especially about coal) in India's political evolution.  Adri�n Lerner Patr�n (Yale) showed how rivers in Brazil's Amazonia have been understood and depicted, and how this related to ambitions to impose rational management on them.

After lunch, Peter Oviatt (MIT) discussed the science of mushroom farming (who knew?) and the formation of a new paradigm of industrial mushroom production.  Laura Martin (Cornell) explained the relation between the science of ecological restoration and radiocarbon dating.  And Leah Aronosky (Harvard) discussed illustrations of fish specimens produced by the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842, and their role in enabling comparisons with specimens from elsewhere.

These papers considered several key themes relating to science and environmental history: the influence of knowledge on practical human choices, the political roles of knowledge, the relation between knowledge and technocratic expertise, the distinction between context-independent and situated knowledge (especially in industrial contexts), and scientific practices in the field.

It was all very interesting.  If the papers in this conference are any indication, environmental history is gaining a new analytical sophistication regarding the formation, manipulation and application of knowledge.