'Think globally, act locally' has become a call to environmentalist mobilization, proposing a closer connection between global concerns, local issues and individual responsibility. "A History of Environmentalism" explores this dialectic relationship, with ten contributors from a range of disciplines providing a history of environmentalism which frames global themes and narrates local stories.Each of the chapters in this volume addresses specific struggles in the history of environmental movements, for example over national parks, species protection, forests, waste, contamination, nuclear energy and expropriation. A diverse range of environments and environmental actors are covered, including the communities in the Amazonian Forest, the antelope in Tibet, atomic power plants in Europe and oil and politics in the Niger Delta. The chapters demonstrate how these conflicts make visible the intricate connections between local and global, the body and the environment, and power and nature. "A History of Environmentalism" tells us much about transformations of cultural perceptions and ways of production and consuming, as well as ecological and social changes. More than offering an exhaustive picture of the entire environmentalist movement, "A History of Environmentalism" highlights the importance of the experience of environmentalism within local communities. It offers a worldwide and polyphonic perspective, making it key reading for students and scholars of global and environmental history and political ecology.

Landscape, politics and history: the Italian mountains as a crucible of national and natural identity. This book is part of a wider current in environmental history, that explores the links between nature and nation. It uncovers how Italian identity and mountains have constituted one another. It argues that state regimes since unification in 1861 have made mountains into national symbols and resources, thereby affecting mountain communities and ecosystems. The nationalisation of Italian mountains has been a story of military conquest and resistance, ecological and social transformation, expropriating resources and imposing meanings. The wind of 'big' history was rolling through the Alps and the Apennines: State building and national identities, totalitarianism and democracy, economic development and environmental protection, scientific knowledge and vernacular practices are the substance of this book. The book starts with the revaluation of mountains as the repository of the last Italian wilderness and chronicles the discovery/ invention of mountains as wild, primitive, and rebellious places needing to be tamed. War World I permanently transformed mountain landscapes and people, nationalising both. When the Fascists came to power, the process of politicisation of mountains reached its acme; the regime constructed and exploited mountains both rhetorically and materially, on one hand celebrating ruralism and rural people and, on the other, giving mountain natural resources to large hydro-electric corporations. Having been the sanctuary of Resistance against the Nazi-Fascist occupation, the Italian mountains were emptied by the economic boom of the 1960s; only recently have the green of natural parks and the white of the ski resorts become the distinctive colors of the new, tourist-oriented Italian mountains.

Focusing on extreme environments, from Umberto Nobile's expedition to the Arctic to the commercialization of Mt Everest, this volume examines global environmental margins, how they are conceived and how perceptions have changed. Mountaintops and Arctic environments are the settings of social encounters, political strategies, individual enterprises, geopolitical tensions, decolonial practises, and scientific experiments. Concentrating on mountaineering and Arctic exploration between 1880 - 1960, contributors to this volume show how environmental marginalisation has been discursively implemented and materially generated by foreign and local actors. It examines to what extent the status and identity of extreme environments has changed during modern times, moving them from periphery to the centre and discarding their marginality. The first section looks at ways in which societies have framed remoteness, through the lens of commercialization, colonialism, knowledge production and sport, while the second examines the reverse transfer, focusing on how extreme nature has influenced societies, through international network creation, political consensus and identity building. This collection enriches the historical understanding of exploration by adopting a critical approach and offering multidimensional and multi-gaze reconstructions. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in environmental history, geography, colonial studies and the environmental humanities.

In the age of climate change, the possibility that dramatic environmental transformations might cause the dislocation of millions of people has become not only a matter for scientific speculation or science-fiction narratives, but the object of strategic planning and military analysis. Environmental History of Modern Migrations offers a worldwide perspective on the history of migrations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides an opportunity to reflect on the global ecological transformations and developments which have occurred throughout the last few centuries. With a primary focus on the environment/migration nexus, this book advocates that global environmental changes are not distinct from global social transformations. Instead, it offers a progressive method of combining environmental and social history, which manages to both encompass and transcend current approaches to environmental justice issues. This edited collection will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental history and migration studies, as well as those with an interest in history and sociology.

In the age of climate change, the possibility that dramatic environmental transformations might cause the dislocation of millions of people has become not only a matter for scientific speculation or science-fiction narratives, but the object of strategic planning and military analysis. Environmental History of Modern Migrations offers a worldwide perspective on the history of migrations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides an opportunity to reflect on the global ecological transformations and developments which have occurred throughout the last few centuries. With a primary focus on the environment/migration nexus, this book advocates that global environmental changes are not distinct from global social transformations. Instead, it offers a progressive method of combining environmental and social history, which manages to both encompass and transcend current approaches to environmental justice issues. This edited collection will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental history and migration studies, as well as those with an interest in history and sociology.

Humans may live in the Anthropocene, but this does not affect all in the same way. How would the Anthropocene look if, instead of searching its traces in the geosphere, researchers would look for them in the organosphere, in the ecologies of humans in their entanglements with the environment? Looking at this embodied stratigraphy of power and toxicity, more than the Anthropocene, we will discover the Wasteocene. The imposition of wasting relationships on subaltern human and more-than-human communities implies the construction of toxic ecologies made of contaminating substances and narratives. While official accounts have systematically erased any trace of those wasting relationships, another kind of narrative has been written in flesh, blood, and cells. Traveling between Naples (Italy) and Agbogbloshie (Ghana), science fiction and epidemic outbreaks, this Element will take the readers into the bowels of the Wasteocene, but it will also indicate the commoning practices which are dismantling it.

What can a pesticide pump, a jar full of sand, or an old calico print tell us about the Anthropocene the age of humans? Just as paleontologists look to fossil remains to infer past conditions of life on earth, so might past and present-day objects offer clues to intertwined human and natural histories that shape our planetary futures. In this era of aggressive hydrocarbon extraction, extreme weather, and severe economic disparity, how might certain objects make visible the uneven interplay of economic, material, and social forces that shape relationships among human and nonhuman beings?Future Remains is a thoughtful and creative meditation on these questions. The fifteen objects gathered in this book resemble more the tarots of a fortuneteller than the archaeological finds of an expedition they speak of planetary futures. Marco Armiero, Robert S. Emmett, and Gregg Mitman have assembled a cabinet of curiosities for the Anthropocene, bringing together a mix of lively essays, creatively chosen objects, and stunning photographs by acclaimed photographer Tim Flach. The result is a book that interrogates the origins, implications, and potential dangers of the Anthropocene and makes us wonder anew about what exactly human history is made of.

'Think globally, act locally' has become a call to environmentalist mobilization, proposing a closer connection between global concerns, local issues and individual responsibility. "A History of Environmentalism" explores this dialectic relationship, with ten contributors from a range of disciplines providing a history of environmentalism which frames global themes and narrates local stories.Each of the chapters in this volume addresses specific struggles in the history of environmental movements, for example over national parks, species protection, forests, waste, contamination, nuclear energy and expropriation. A diverse range of environments and environmental actors are covered, including the communities in the Amazonian Forest, the antelope in Tibet, atomic power plants in Europe and oil and politics in the Niger Delta. The chapters demonstrate how these conflicts make visible the intricate connections between local and global, the body and the environment, and power and nature. "A History of Environmentalism" tells us much about transformations of cultural perceptions and ways of production and consuming, as well as ecological and social changes. More than offering an exhaustive picture of the entire environmentalist movement, "A History of Environmentalism" highlights the importance of the experience of environmentalism within local communities. It offers a worldwide and polyphonic perspective, making it key reading for students and scholars of global and environmental history and political ecology.

Landscape, politics and history: the Italian mountains as a crucible of national and natural identity. This book is part of a wider current in environmental history, that explores the links between nature and nation. It uncovers how Italian identity and mountains have constituted one another. It argues that state regimes since unification in 1861 have made mountains into national symbols and resources, thereby affecting mountain communities and ecosystems. The nationalisation of Italian mountains has been a story of military conquest and resistance, ecological and social transformation, expropriating resources and imposing meanings. The wind of 'big' history was rolling through the Alps and the Apennines: State building and national identities, totalitarianism and democracy, economic development and environmental protection, scientific knowledge and vernacular practices are the substance of this book. The book starts with the revaluation of mountains as the repository of the last Italian wilderness and chronicles the discovery/ invention of mountains as wild, primitive, and rebellious places needing to be tamed. World War I permanently transformed mountain landscapes and people, nationalising both. When the Fascists came to power, the process of politicisation of mountains reached its acme; the regime constructed and exploited mountains both rhetorically and materially, on one hand celebrating ruralism and rural people and, on the other, giving mountain natural resources to large hydro-electric corporations. Having been the sanctuary of Resistance against the Nazi-Fascist occupation, the Italian mountains were emptied by the economic boom of the 1960s; only recently have the green of natural parks and the white of the ski resorts become the distinctive colors of the new, tourist-oriented Italian mountains.

Is Italy il bel paese-the beautiful country-where tourists spend their vacations looking for art, history, and scenery? Or is it a land whose beauty has been cursed by humanity\u2019s greed and nature\u2019s cruelty? The answer is largely a matter of narrative and the narrator\u2019s vision of Italy. The fifteen essays in Nature and History in Modern Italy investigate that nation\u2019s long experience in managing domesticated rather than wild natures and offer insight into these conflicting visions. Italians shaped their land in the most literal sense, producing the landscape, sculpting its heritage, embedding memory in nature, and rendering the two different visions inseparable. The interplay of Italy\u2019s rich human history and its dramatic natural diversity is a subject with broad appeal to a wide range of readers.