Environmental History
Description
Maohong Bao:
"Environmental history deals with the interaction of the man and the rest of the nature over time. To understand this definition better, there are two aspects that should be emphasized. First, the man mentioned here is not only the biological creature that exists in the singular, but also a social and a collective one. In the traditional history writing, man’s sociality was emphasized, meanwhile the biological attributes were ignored. In the deeper studies of ecology, man’s biological attributes were emphasized; however, the sociality that differentiates the man from the ordinary organisms was ignored. As a matter of fact, the human being is integral part of the nature; however, the man is a unique creature who specializes in the sociality. Furthermore, the emphasis of man’s sociality could not go beyond man’s biological attributes. Second, why is the term ‘rest of the nature’ reinforced? Because it is underpinned by two theories, namely holism and organism. In holism, the man and the nature are regarded, that is different from dualism and reductionism in which the man is regarded as the opposite of the nature. Furthermore, the quality of the nature is not determined by the average quality of its different parts, but by the least, just as the volume of a bucket is determined by the shortest edge. In any organism, the nature is regarded as the integral whole, in which different parts have their own intrinsic values together with its instrumental value. Additionally, the nature has its limitation. It means that the nature would not be able to supply resources unlimitedly and has a limited capacity to absorb pollutants. Namely, if the pollutants exceed the self-purification capacity, the nature will be contaminated and furthermore, the contaminated nature will threaten the survival of the human beings. Thus, environmental history does not simply focus on the human being only, on ecology or nature, its focus is on the interaction of the human being and the rest of the nature. "
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Characteristics
Maohong Bao:
"To speak more specifically, environmental history consists of four aspects. First, the changing process of environment. Here, it is not the natural transformation that resulted from the natural power, but the environmental change would result from the human activity. The former kind of environmental transformation was usually called the history of environment, whilst the latter type of environmental change was usually called environmental history. Second, there is the material or economic environmental history. It focuses on the interaction of the economic activity and the physical environment, especially the change of productivity and the mode of production. Third, there is the political environmental history. It focuses on the environmental consequences of political power and the political consequence of environmental changes. Fourth, there is cultural or intellectual environmental history. It focuses on how the human being perceives the environment and how this perception influences their adaptation and utilization of the environment. Although the emphases of these four aspects are different, they share some commonalities, such as the interaction between the human being and the rest of the nature, including the role of the human in the environment and vice versa, organic connection of different elements and aspects in nature, etc. "
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