Broader Horizons?
Name
futureofeh.broaderhorizons10.pdf
Size
13.26 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
004b557938ebd1c636ae84f726dd9dd8
Author(s)
Ritvo, Harriet
Date Issued
March 2011
Journal
Rachel Carson Center Perspectives
Publisher
Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society
Citation
Ritvo, Harriet. "Broader Horizons?" Chapter in The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities, Edited by Kimberly Coulter and Christof Mauch. RCC Perspectives, issue 3 (2011): 22-23.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
For very good reasons, obvious every time we hear the news, it is difficult to separate the future of environmental history from the future of the environment. The long record of our species’ engagement with the global environment offers strong suggestions about the likely consequences of present actions and inactions. We are eager to share our insights with politicians and with the general public. Historians are naturally aware—probably more aware than anyone else—of the force of George Santayana’s well-known comment that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But we may be less aware of the frequent force of an alternative comment: that those who can remember the past are nevertheless condemned to repeat it, for one reason or another. Some of the attributes of good historical scholarship may actually undermine its potential as grist for the political mill. These are the same attributes that often produce problems when we try to distill complicated arguments or interpretations into an interview sound bite. (Of course, this predicament is not the exclusive preserve of environmental historians; we share it with academics in many other fields.)
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Humanities. History Section
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/download/publications/perspectives/2011_perspectives/issue6.pdf
