A little while ago, I read a reference to the book Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, by Thomas R. Dunlap, which was published back in 1999. I don’t have a copy of this book, and not many libraries hold it, so I was keen to find out what the reviews were at the time. However, I was not able to find one single review through my friend, the usually highly reliable Mr Google.
Luckily, I was able to ascertain that New Zealand environmental historian Paul Star had done a review of the book for the journal Australian Historical Studies in 2000, and he has kindly given me his permission to reproduce a version of it here. This review is written from the perspective of a New Zealand scholar of environmental history, so is particularly useful for Antipodeans. (more…)
May 11, 2013
The effect of personal memory on environmental consciousness
Posted by envirohistorynz under commentary | Tags: afforestation, Cyclone Bola, deforestation, Environmental History, erosion, farming, floods, hill-country, New Zealand, storm |[2] Comments
One of many scenes of devastation in the aftermath of Cyclone Bola.
I have often wondered why I am so interested in the link between deforestation, flooding and erosion. I put it down to my love of forested environments, and therefore my interest in the history of these environments. But it has occurred to me that it is perhaps more than this – that it relates also to personal memory, of an event in the environmental history of my lifetime.
That event was Cyclone Bola, which hit the east coast of the North Island in March 1988, when I was a teenager. (more…)
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