Imperialism, Intellectual Networks and Environmental Change: Origins and Evolution of Global Environmental History, 1676-2000: Part II

The first part of this article traced the early beginnings of environmental history that was framed largely in the context of the colonial encounter. Part II begins by examining the developments in environmental history that in the 1950s had their roots in the nexus that had developed in the 1930s between world history, the `Annales¿ school of history and aspects of local history as well. Scholars of environmental history in this period also came under the towering influence of the historian Arnold Toynbee, whose narratives and explanations of the global cyclical movements in world history stemmed from his understanding of the classical Greek and Roman periods of world history. Toynbee¿s later writings imparted a new ecological and internationalist direction to world history. The latter 1950s saw the spread of environmental history to scholars in other countries and an admixture of different disciplines and specialisations gave a new thrust to the subject. Earlier histories of imperialism and colonialism now began to be looked at a new from their impact on the environment and the ecology