Why did we so consistently look at the West through the…

“Born of antimodern sentiment, the summer camp was ultimately a modern phenomenon, a "therapeutic space" as much dependent on the city, the factory, and…

— Sharon Wall

Environmental history was . . . born out of a moral purpose, with strong political commitments behind it, but also became, as it matured,…

— Donald Worster

For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes,…

— Jared Diamond

“It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones…Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but…

— Wallace Stegner

“Resources, waterways, and climatic zones loom so large in their writings that one can almost forget that people have something to do with the…

— William Cronon

Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think…

— Roderick Nash

“In the 1940s dams were synonymous with progress, and the rivers were to be conquered with the fervour of a pioneer wielding an axe.”

— Tim Palmer

“By what peculiar twist of perception, I wondered, had I managed to see the plowed fields and second-growth forests of southern Wisconsin—a landscape of…

— William Cronon

We may be entering a new phase of history, a time when we begin to rediscover . . . the traditional teaching that power…

— Donald Worster

Environmental history fit[s] into the framework of New Left history. [It is] history "from the bottom up," except that here the exploited element [is]…

— Roderick Nash

“During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a practical knowledge of the construction of small lakes was part of the equipment of most countrymen. Many…

— Elisabeth Beazley

“Contemporary attitudes toward urban parks fall into three levels of sophistication. The first, the most naive assumption, is that parks are just plots of…

— Galen Cranz

Evolving life must experience a vast range of possibilities, based on environmental histories so unpredictable that no realized route - the pathway to consciousness…

— Stephen Jay Gould

There is little history in the study of nature, and there is little nature in the study of history. I want to show how…

— Donald Worster

Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

— B. F. Skinner