Corona, Gabriella, ed. “What is Global Environmental History? Conversation with Piero Bevilacqua, Guillermo Castro, Ranjan Chakrabarti, Kobus du Pisani, John R. McNeill, Donald Worster.” Global Environment 2 (2008): 228–49.
The telematic debate on the theme “Global History and Global Policies” has provided historians from different historiographic traditions and distant countries—Piero Bevilacqua, Guillermo Castro, Ranjan Chakrabarti, Gabriella Corona, Kobus du Pisani, John McNeill, Donald Worster—with an opportunity to compare views on the different interpretive paradigms of global environmental history. A wide range of subjects was covered: the definition of the discipline’s field of research, themes, and chronological scope; the relationship between global and local; the role of the West in history and historiography; the perspective of the dominated; the discipline’s role in policy making; and its relationship with the natural sciences. The discussion has yielded a rich harvest of reflections on global environmental history as a paradigm for the interpretation of the past and a cultural and political instrument for action in the present. Important indications have emerged as regards the research paths a global environmental historian can follow to contribute to this field of studies. (Abstract at The White Horse Press.)
All rights reserved. Made available on the Environment & Society Portal for nonprofit educational purposes only, courtesy of Gabriella Corona, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche / National Research Council of Italy (CNR), and XL edizioni s.a.s.