Conceptions of risk and uncertainty are traditionally applied to moments of environmental and economic crisis, both real and imagined. This new HWO series seeks to understand how ordinary people calculated perceived and real risks and…
What can the twisted histories of one Sri Lankan canal tell us? Sujit Sivasundaram on how the coastal environment of Colombo has been colonised and marketised, but in turn creates its own paths, through winds, waves and waters as well as…
How far did wood scarcity in England trigger deforestation in its colonies at the dawn of empire? Keith Pluymers traces a complex story of conservation, commerce, and colonisation in the early modern Atlantic
As the global ecological crisis deepens and spreads through virus, fire and flood, Elly Robson introduces a new HWO series on The Political Environment. How have politics shaped the way we identify ecological problems and solutions, and how…
As the government considers banning live animal exports, James Bowen unpicks the contentious history behind this practice. How have activists, farmers, and government policy converged on this economic and ethical issue since the…
Bruce Campbell argues that interactions between climate and disease during the fourteenth-century Black Death can inform insights into Covid-19 and alter historians' understanding of the nature of historical change.
The radical historian Alun Howkins was a founder editor of History Workshop, a singer and historian of folk music, and a chronicler of the land and its people. Becky Taylor explores his work and his legacy.
Call for Papers: Environmental History Workshop 2019 on 'Flows' will take place at Northumbria University on 13 September 2019. Deadline for paper proposals 18 March.
How is the Anthropocene – the epoch in which humans have become a major force changing earth systems – changing the nature of historians' evidence base?
Memoryscapes are ‘sound walks’ that invite you to experience the hidden history of a place by listening to the memories of inhabitants, both historical and contemporary, as you walk through it. Toby Butler on Memoryscapes of the River…