Research Guides: HIST 3800: Environmental History of the United States: Home

Getting Started

This research guide is designed to provide you with resources and helpful information for your HIST 3800 research assignment. It will walk you through recommended databases, journals, government websites, and tips for citing sources.

You will need to craft a question around a topic that interests you. There are assignment-specific questions and guidelines in the Developing a Topic in Environmental History tab of this guide.

If you need any help with these steps, please contact our history librarian, using the contact information included in this guide. They are happy to help!

Reference Books

Reference Books, such as encyclopedias and directories, are essentially a resource designed to give you a quick, overview of a topic, event, or person. It's not a book, for instance, to be read cover to cover—only to be read at the point of need. It's a great place to start when doing research because it will give you an overview of a topic and clue you into important people, names, and places that can be later used as search terms. Additionally, many reference sources include citations or recommendations for further, in-depth reading on a topic.

An Environmental History of the Civil War (Ebook) by Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver
Publication Date: 2020
This sweeping new history recognizes that the Civil War was not just a military conflict but also a moment of profound transformation in Americans' relationship to the natural world...Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver weave a far richer story, combining military and environmental history to forge a comprehensive new narrative of the war's significance and impact. As they reveal, the conflict created a new disease environment by fostering the spread of microbes among vulnerable soldiers, civilians, and animals; led to large-scale modifications of the landscape across several states; sparked new thinking about the human relationship to the natural world; and demanded a reckoning with disability and death on an ecological scale. And as the guns fell silent, the change continued; Browning and Silver show how the war influenced the future of weather forecasting, veterinary medicine, the birth of the conservation movement, and the establishment of the first national parks.
US Environmental History (Ebook) by John Wills
Publication Date: 2012
Environmental issues in the USA are more important now than ever before. The devastation inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, growing evidence of global warming, and a struggling national energy supply highlight the unfolding crisis. Environmental fears translate into US automobile giants plying consumers with 'fuel efficient' cars in the 'MPG Lounge' of sales. Politicians talk of energy independence and getting tough on polluters...John Wills shows how the current environmental crisis is firmly rooted in the past. As well as explaining how today's problems are manifestations of older systems of economics, culture, and politics, he also argues that America has already witnessed a range of 'doomsday scenarios,' both real and imagined....most significantly, he poses the question of whether Americans have been inviting doomsday through their long-term environmental actions.
American Environmental History (Ebook) by Carolyn Merchant
Publication Date: 2007
By studying the many ways diverse peoples have changed, shaped, and conserved the natural world over time, environmental historians provide insight into humanity's unique relationship with nature and, more importantly, are better able to understand the origins of our current environmental crisis. Beginning with the precolonial land-use practice of Native Americans and concluding with our twenty-first-century concerns over our global ecological crisis, American Environmental History addresses contentious issues such as the preservation of the wilderness, the expulsion of native peoples from national parks, and population growth, and considers the formative forces of gender, race, and class. The volume also includes a compendium of significant people, concepts, events, agencies, and legislation, and an extensive bibliography of critical films, books, and web sites.
The Earth Will Appear As the Garden of Eden (Ebook) by Jedediah S. Rogers and Matthew C. Godfrey (Eds)
Publication Date: 2019
Although scholars have increasingly investigated the impact of religion and religious movements on nature, studies of the interactions between Mormons and the natural environment are few. This volume applies the perspectives of environmental history to Mormonism, providing both a scholarly introduction to Mormon environmental history and a spur for historians to consider the role of nature in the Mormon past...The essays in this volume-written by leading scholars in both environmental and Mormon history-explore how nature has influenced Mormon beliefs and how these beliefs inform Mormons' encounters with nature. Introducing overarching environmental ideas, contributors examine specific aspects of nature and Mormon theology to glean new insights into the Mormon experience.
Bison and People on the North American Great Plains (Ebook) by Geoff Cunfer (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
The near disappearance of the American bison in the nineteenth century is commonly understood to be the result of overhunting, capitalist greed, and all but genocidal military policy. This interpretation remains seductive because of its simplicity; there are villains and victims in this familiar cautionary tale of the American frontier. But as this volume of groundbreaking scholarship shows, the story of the bison's demise is actually quite nuanced. Bison and People on the North American Great Plains brings together voices from several disciplines to offer new insights into the relationship between humans and animals that approached extinction.
Beyond Nature's Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Ebook) by Nancy C. Unger
Publication Date: 2012
From pre-Columbian times to the environmental justice movements of the present, women and men frequently responded to the environment and environmental issues in profoundly different ways. Although both environmental history and women's history are flourishing fields, explorations of the synergy produced by the interplay between environment and sex, sexuality, and gender are just beginning. Offering more than biographies of great women in environmental history, Beyond Nature's Housekeepers examines the intersections that shaped women's unique environmental concerns and activism and that framed the way the larger culture responded.

Finding Books

This list is only a starting point of commonly used books in this area, not a complete list of library books on the subject. To find other books on this subject, use the search box on the library's homepage. To find other books on this subject, use the search box on the library's homepage. The search box defaults to OneSearch. To look for books, toggle over to Books. This will limit your search to books and ebooks.

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