J. Donald Hughes, What is Environmental History?

Like its 2006 progenitor, this edition of Professor J. Donald Hughes’s survey of environmental history provides a broad overview in an easy reading style that will appeal to most who seek an introduction to the field and its history. Hughes has updated the earlier edition with discussions of new trends in the field and references to the most recent scholarship, while retaining his earlier structure and organization. He continues to focus on model texts to provide examples of scholarship within the various themes prevalent in the field, yet also incorporates brief discussions of other relevant sources to demonstrate the diversity of work being done. In short, Hughes provides a useful, completely up-to-date summary of environmental history with descriptions of classic texts and discussions of the myriad directions the historiography has taken.