This is a collection of essays showing that concerns about climate change are far from being a uniquely modern phenomenon. It traces the origins of environmental debates about soil erosion, deforestation, and climate change in the writings of early colonial administrators, doctors and missionaries. The author traces what is known and what can be inferred about El Nino events centuries before the devastating 1997/1998 effects. In a concluding essay he analyzes the general significance of marginal land and its ecology in the history of popular resistance movements.

From constructing new buildings to describing rival-controlled areas as morally and physically dangerous, leaders in late antiquity fundamentally shaped their physical environment and thus the events that unfolded within it. Controlling Contested Places maps the city of Antioch (Antakya, Turkey) through the topographically sensitive vocabulary of cultural geography, demonstrating the critical role played by physical and rhetorical spatial contests during the tumultuous fourth century. Paying close attention to the manipulation of physical places, Christine Shepardson exposes some of the powerful forces that structured the development of religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the late Roman Empire. Theological claims and political support were not the only significant factors in determining which Christian communities gained authority around the Empire. Rather, AntiochÕs urban and rural places, far from being an inert backdrop against which events transpired, were ever-shifting sites of, and tools for, the negotiation of power, authority, and religious identity. This book traces the ways in which leaders like John Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Libanius encouraged their audiences to modify their daily behaviors and transform their interpretation of the world (and landscape) around them. Shepardson argues that examples from Antioch were echoed around the Mediterranean world, and similar types of physical and rhetorical manipulations continue to shape the politics of identity and perceptions of religious orthodoxy to this day.

One woman’s enlightening trek through the natural histories, cultural stories, and present perils of thirteen national monuments, from Maine to Hawaii This land is your land. When it comes to national monuments, the sentiment could hardly be more fraught. Gold Butte in Nevada, Organ Mountains–Desert Peaks in New Mexico, Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine, Cascade–Siskiyou in Oregon and California: these are among the thirteen natural sites McKenzie Long visits in This Contested Land, an eye-opening exploration of the stories these national monuments tell, the passions they stir, and the controversies surrounding them today. Starting amid the fragrant sagebrush and red dirt of Bears Ears National Monument on the eve of the Trump Administration’s decision to reduce the site by 85 percent, Long climbs sandstone cliffs, is awed by Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings and is intrigued by 4,000-year-old petroglyphs. She hikes through remote pink canyons recently removed from the boundary of Grand Staircase–Escalante, skis to a backcountry hut in Maine to view a truly dark night sky, snorkels in warm Hawaiian waters to plumb the meaning of marine preserves, volunteers near the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States, and witnesses firsthand the diverse forms of devotion evoked by the Rio Grande. In essays both contemplative and resonant, This Contested Land confronts an unjust past and imagines a collaborative future that bears witness to these regions’ enduring Indigenous connections. From hazardous climate change realities to volatile tensions between economic development and environmental conservation, practical and philosophical issues arise as Long seeks the complicated and often overlooked—or suppressed—stories of these incomparable places. Her journey, mindfully undertaken and movingly described, emphasizes in clear and urgent terms the unique significance of, and grave threats to, these contested lands.

"In this volume, nine eminent scholars apply the theory and practice of a cultural politics of natural resources to spatial and temporal sites that range from petroleum fields in Nigeria to palm-oil plantations in Indonesia; from irrigation engineering in British India to contemporary environmental decision making in the United Kingdom; from global climate change to water scarcity in Gujarat." "The essays in this volume stimulate and inform environmental debates in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, history, and geography - as well as in the world at large."--BOOK JACKET.

A “compelling” study of impact of the Civil War in Appalachia that “adeptly juggles the military, social, and political complexities of this border war” (American Historical Review). During the four years of the Civil War, the border between eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia was highly contested territory, alternately occupied by both the Confederacy and the Union. Though sparsely populated, the geography of the region made it a desirable stronghold for future tactical maneuvers. In Contested Borderland , Brian D. McKnight’s unprecedented geographical analysis of military tactics and civilian involvement provides a new and valuable dimension to the story of a region facing the turmoil of war. Winner of the James I. Robertson Literary Prize “A very valuable study.” —Appalachian Journal “Engaging and eminently readable. . . . A compelling account of an isolated world turned upside down by a war fought over issues few of its residents understood or cared much about.” —Civil War Times “A revealing and richly diverse account of the war in this too-neglected pocket of the South.” —Daniel E. Sutherland, editor of Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front “Recommend[ed] for all serious Civil War scholars and enthusiasts.” —Journal of American History “McKnight’s work has much to offer in covering the war in the Central Appalachian Divide.” —Journal of East Tennessee History “An enjoyable and informational read.” —Journal of Military History “Essential for all Appalachian regional and Civil War collections.” —Journal of Southern History “The author’s analysis of military tactics, political realities, and genuine hardship, is first rate.” —West Virginia History

"To fully understand this river and its past, one must examine many separate pieces of history scattered throughout two nations--seven states within the United States and two within Mexico--and sort through a large amount of scientific data. One needs to be part hydrologist, geologist, economist, sociologist, anthropologist, and historian to fully understand the entire story. Despite this river's narrow size and meager flow, its tale is very large indeed." -From the conclusion The Colorado River is a vital resource to urban and agricultural communities across the Southwest, providing water to 30 million people. Contested Waters tells the river's story-a story of conquest, control, division, and depletion. Beginning in prehistory and continuing into the present day, Contested Waters focuses on three important and often overlooked aspects of the river's use: the role of western water law in its over-allocation, the complexity of power relationships surrounding the river, and the concept of sustainable use and how it has been either ignored or applied in recent times. It is organized in two parts, the first addresses the chronological history of the river and long-term issues, while the second examines in more detail four specific topics: metropolitan perceptions, American Indian water rights, US-Mexico relations over the river, and water marketing issues. Creating a complete picture of the evolution of this crucial yet over-utilized resource, this comprehensive summary will fascinate anyone interested in the Colorado River or the environmental history of the Southwest.

The definitive account of one of the most important battles of the twentieth century, and the Black River borderlands’ transformation into Northwest Vietnam This new work of historical and political geography ventures beyond the conventional framing of the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, the 1954 conflict that toppled the French empire in Indochina. Tracking a longer period of anticolonial revolution and nation-state formation from 1945 to 1960, Christian Lentz argues that a Vietnamese elite constructed territory as a strategic form of rule. Engaging newly available archival sources, Lentz offers a novel conception of territory as a contingent outcome of spatial contests.

Why are food scares become so common? Whose voices count in decisions affecting the landscapes where we live? Will we soon be wars over water? What makes people protest outside international trade meetings? These are just a few of the questions that are explored in Contested Environments. By bringing together perspectives from science, social science, technology, and humanities, the book addresses in a uniquely interdisciplinary way why environmental issues are so often controversial. Other features include the detailed examination of a wide range of topics from specific disputes such as those around GM crops, national parks, energy policy, water supply, and international trade to broader debates like environmental justice, economic valuation of environments, and the media the promotion of integrative thinking through the book-wide use of the concepts of value, power, and action the inclusion of frequent activities to encourage readers to develop both their appreciation of particular issues and generic skills the rich illustration of the text with examples from around the world. The book is part of a series entitled Environment: Change, Contest and Response. The series forms a significant part of an interdisciplinary Open University course on environmental matters. The other books in the series are: Understanding Environmental Issues; Changing Environments; Environmental Responses.

Contested Boundaries: A New Pacific Northwest History is an engaging, contemporary look at the themes, events, and people that have shaped the history of the Pacific Northwest over the last two centuries. An engaging look at the themes, events, and people that shaped the Pacific Northwest – Washington, Oregon, and Idaho – from when only Native Peoples inhabited the land through the twentieth century. Twelve theme-driven essays covering the human and environmental impact of exploration, trade, settlement and industrialization in the nineteenth century, followed by economic calamity, world war and globalization in the twentieth. Written by two professors with over 20 years of teaching experience, this work introduces the history of the Pacific Northwest in a style that is accessible, relevant, and meaningful for anyone wishing to learn more about the region’s recent history. A companion website for students and instructors includes test banks, PowerPoint presentations, student self-assessment tests, useful primary documents, and resource links: www.wiley.com/go/jepsen/contestedboundaries.

Shugendō has been an object of fascination among scholars and the general public, yet its historical development remains an enigma. This book offers a provocative reexamination of the social, economic, and spiritual terrain from which this mountain religious system arose. Caleb Carter traces Shugendō through the mountains of Togakushi (Nagano Prefecture), while situating it within the religious landscape of medieval and early modern Japan. His is the first major study to view Shugendō as a self-conscious religious system—something that was historically emergent but conceptually distinct from the prevailing Buddhist orders of medieval Japan. Beyond Shugendō, his work rethinks a range of issues in the history of Japanese religions, including exclusionary policies toward women, the formation of Shintō, and religion at the social and geographical margins of the Japanese archipelago. Carter takes a new tack in the study of religions by tracking three recurrent and intersecting elements—institution, ritual, and narrative. Examination of origin accounts, temple records, gazetteers, and iconography from Togakushi demonstrates how practitioners implemented storytelling, new rituals and festivals, and institutional measures to merge Shugendō with their mountain’s culture while establishing social legitimacy and economic security. Indicative of early modern trends, the case of Mount Togakushi reveals how Shugendō moved from a patchwork of regional communities into a translocal system of national scope, eventually becoming Japan’s signature mountain religion.