Environmental History
Environmental History tells the story of society's interaction with the physical environment. It represents an increasingly important approach with which to explore the many ways in which humans and the environment affect each other at a range of temporal and spatial scales, and is concerned with a number of important themes. First, the way in which nature is organised, functions and operates, the identification of the physical attributes of past environments, and how these have changed over time; second, the interaction between the socio-economic realm and the environment; and the third theme is concerned with the intellectual encounter with nature, that is to say the different ways in which humans perceive, value and record nature though myths, law, ethics, custom and perception and other symbolic mechanisms.
The school of Goegraphy has established strengths in the field of Environmental history and the degree integrates staff research interests in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. Resarch interests address a very wide range of themes incuding reconstructions and cultural representations of landscape and environment, patterns and processes of historical geographical change and histories of geographical and environmental knowledge. This research is funded through substantial grants from research councils and charitable trusts (AHRC, ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme and Welcome).
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