Overview

A kaleidoscopic rethinking of how we come to know the earth.   This book brings the history of the geosciences and world cosmologies together, exploring many traditions, including Chinese, Pacific, Islamic, South and Southeast Asian conceptions of earth’s origin and makeup. Together the chapters ask: How have different ideas about the sacred, animate, and earthly changed modern environmental sciences? How have different world traditions understood human and geological origins? How does the inclusion of multiple cosmologies change the meaning of the Anthropocene and the global climate crisis? By carefully examining these questions, New Earth Histories sets an ambitious agenda for how we think about the earth.   The chapters consider debates about the age and structure of the earth, how humans and earth systems interact, and how empire has been conceived in multiple traditions. The methods the authors deploy are diverse—from cultural history and visual and material studies to ethnography, geography, and Indigenous studies—and the effect is to highlight how earth knowledge emerged from historically specific situations. New Earth Histories provides both a framework for studying science at a global scale and fascinating examples to educate as well as inspire future work. Essential reading for students and scholars of earth science history, environmental humanities, history of science and religion, and science and empire.

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9780226828589

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Reviews

“New Earth Histories radically resituates the history of earth knowledge in space. Many of the essays center individuals, institutions, and traditions outside of Europe and North America. Just as importantly, other essays ask how a specifically European space mattered for the formation of earth science. The volume also showcases an impressive array of approaches to what constitutes ‘earth sciences.’ Deploying methods from cultural history, visual and material studies, and ethnography, to name only a few examples, New Earth Histories reveals how earth knowledge emerged from historically specific circulations and contestations.” -- Daniel Stolz, University of Wisconsin-Madison “This book productively pushes the boundaries of how ‘earth knowledge’ might be conventionally understood, in part by centering other-than-Western forms of expertise but also by emphasizing the interconnectedness of geological and biological realms and knowledge, rather than treating these as separate areas of inquiry. The essays demonstrate in wide-ranging and empirically specific ways how historians and other humanities scholars might approach the intersections of human and geological temporalities.” -- Heidi V. Scott, University of Massachusetts Amherst “The centrality of the ‘Anthopocene’ in recent public discussion of our planetary future has given new prominence to the history of the Earth sciences as a whole. Although scientific understanding of the Earth and its own history—‘geology’ in its traditional sense—developed mainly in the West, its ambitions have always been worldwide. This volume offers an impressive set of historical studies of the amazingly diverse ways in which human beings have sought to understand their terrestrial environment.” -- Martin Rudwick, University of Cambridge

New Earth Histories radically resituates the history of earth knowledge in space. Many of the essays center individuals, institutions, and traditions outside of Europe and North America. Just as importantly, other essays ask how a specifically European space mattered for the formation of earth science. The volume also showcases an impressive array of approaches to what constitutes 'earth sciences.' Deploying methods from cultural history, visual and material studies, and ethnography, to name only a few examples, New Earth Histories reveals how earth knowledge emerged from historically specific circulations and contestations. -- Daniel Stolz, University of Wisconsin-Madison This book productively pushes the boundaries of how 'earth knowledge' might be conventionally understood, in part by centering other-than-Western forms of expertise but also by emphasizing the interconnectedness of geological and biological realms and knowledge, rather than treating these as separate areas of inquiry. The essays demonstrate in wide-ranging and empirically specific ways how historians and other humanities scholars might approach the intersections of human and geological temporalities. -- Heidi V. Scott, University of Massachusetts Amherst The centrality of the 'Anthopocene' in recent public discussion of our planetary future has given new prominence to the history of the Earth sciences as a whole. Although scientific understanding of the Earth and its own history-'geology' in its traditional sense-developed mainly in the West, its ambitions have always been worldwide. This volume offers an impressive set of historical studies of the amazingly diverse ways in which human beings have sought to understand their terrestrial environment. -- Martin Rudwick, University of Cambridge

“New Earth Histories radically resituates the history of earth knowledge in space. Many of the essays center individuals, institutions, and traditions outside of Europe and North America. Just as importantly, other essays ask how a specifically European space mattered for the formation of earth science. The volume also showcases an impressive array of approaches to what constitutes ‘earth sciences.’ Deploying methods from cultural history, visual and material studies, and ethnography, to name only a few examples, New Earth Histories reveals how earth knowledge emerged from historically specific circulations and contestations.” -- Daniel Stolz, University of Wisconsin-Madison “This book productively pushes the boundaries of how ‘earth knowledge’ might be conventionally understood, in part by centering other-than-Western forms of expertise but also by emphasizing the interconnectedness of geological and biological realms and knowledge, rather than treating these as separate areas of inquiry. The essays demonstrate in wide-ranging and empirically specific ways how historians and other humanities scholars might approach the intersections of human and geological temporalities.” -- Heidi V. Scott, University of Massachusetts Amherst “The centrality of the ‘Anthopocene’ in recent public discussion of our planetary future has given new prominence to the history of the Earth sciences as a whole. Although scientific understanding of the Earth and its own history—‘geology’ in its traditional sense—developed mainly in the West, its ambitions have always been worldwide. This volume offers an impressive set of historical studies of the amazingly diverse ways in which human beings have sought to understand their terrestrial environment.” -- Martin J. S. Rudwick, University of Cambridge

Author Information

Alison Bashford is Scientia Professor in History and codirector of the New Earth Histories Research Program at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Emily M. Kern is assistant professor of history of science at the University of Chicago. Adam Bobbette is a lecturer in geographical and earth sciences at the University of Glasgow. 

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