Environmental Histories of the Mid-Atlantic: An Introduction

Abstract

We hope that those of you interested in the history of Pennsylvania— of "Penn's woods"—embrace the field of environmental history. This approach to the past examines the relationships human beings have had with the natural world: how and why humans have changed the environment, and how that changed environment has, in turn, reshaped human society. The basis for those relationships can range from the animate (such as elk) to the inanimate (oil), and even to the intangible (the pastoral ideal). As a scholarly approach to the past, environmental history emerged in the 1970s as a growing awareness of global environmental issues and an explosion of popular environmentalist movements swept through society. Perhaps this brief definition is old news to you, because by now environmental history has matured as a scholarly field.