"Environmental history unites the oldest themes with the newest in contemporary historiography: the evolution of epidemics and climate, those two factors being integral parts of the human ecosystem; the series of natural calamities aggravated by a lack of foresight . . . ; the destruction of Nature, caused by soaring population and/or by the predators of industrial overconsumption; nuisances of urban and manufacturing origin, which lead to air or water pollution; human congestion or noise levels in urban areas, in a period of galloping urbanization."

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, "Histoire et Environnement," special issue of Annales (1974), as quoted in Donald Worster, The Ends of the Earth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 291.

"It is in the midst of this compromised and complex situation--the reciprocal influences of a changing nature and a changing society--that environmental history must find its home."

Richard White, "Historiographical Essay, American Environmental History: The Development of a New Field," 54, Pacific Historical Review (1985): 297-335, quotation on p. 335.

"The best scholarship [on Native Americans and the environment] will take its inspiration from ecology, not in any mechanistic sense which eliminates culture as a creative force, but rather by stressing the interplay and reciprocal influences between Indian cultures and the natural world."

Richard White, "Native Americans and the Environment," in W.R. Swagerty, ed., Scholars and the Indian Experience (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984): 179-204, quotation on p. 197.

Arthur McEvoy, "Toward an Interactive theory of Nature and Culture: Ecology, Production, and Cognition in the California Fishing industry," Environmental Review 11, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 289-305, quotation on pages 300-301.

"The range of human and ecological processes that are inherent in each human-environment relationship . . . illustrate how the "thickness" of historical description increases as addiitonal processes are incorporated into theory. . . . If the theories that historians employ help separate the strands of change into identifiable threads, their ability to trace change over time with precision will be increased. The choice among which of those histories is the "correct" interpretation is far from a flight into relativity; rather it is a matter of conscious social decision-making that is itself subject to change over time."

Barbara Leibhardt, "Interpretation and Causal Analysis: Theories in Environmental History," Environmental Review 12, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 23-36, quotation on p. 33.

"From [environmental] histories we can infer the modes of thought and behavior that are more likely than others to be detrimental to the environment we want to live in. A primary element of such histories should be the social analysis of scientific knowledge construction, because many technologies that are science-based cause so many environmental problems."

Elizabeth Ann R. Bird, "The Social Construction of Nature: Theoretical Approaches to the History of Environmental Problems," Environmental Review 11, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 255-264, quotation on p. 255.

"There is little history in the study of nature, and there is little nature in the study of history. I want to show how we can remedy that cultural lag by developing a new perspective on the historian's enterprise, one that will make us Darwinians at last."

Donald Worster, "History as Natural History: An Essay on Theory and Method," Pacific Historical Review 53 (1984): 1-19, quotation on p. 1.

"We may be entering a new phase of history, a time when we begin to rediscover . . . the traditional teaching that power must entail restraint and responsibility, the ancient awareness that we are interdependent with all of nature and that our sense of community must take in the whole of creation."

Donald Worster, "The Vulnerable Earth," in Worster, ed., The Ends of the Earth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 20.

"Environmental historians . . . insist that we have got to go . . . down to the earth itself as an agent and presence in history. Here we will discover even more fundamental forces at work over time. And to appreciate those forces we must now and then get out of parliamentary chambers, out of birthing rooms and factories, get out of doors altogether, and ramble into fields, woods, and the open air. It is time we bought a good set of walking shoes, and we cannot avoid getting some mud on them."

Donald Worster, "Doing Environmental History," in Worster, ed., The Ends of the Earth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 289.

"Environmental history was . . . born out of a moral purpose, with strong political commitments behind it, but also became, as it matured, a scholarly enterprise that had neither any simple, nor any single, moral or political agenda to promote. Its principal goal became one of deepening our understanding of how humans have been affected by their natural environment through time and, conversely, how they have affected that environment and with what results."

Donald Worster, The Ends of the Earth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 290.

"Imperialism engenders a particular type of ecological drama involving several characteristic phases or acts. The play has been repeated many times, and as with all classical drama, the plot is now well understood. Indeed some might argue that there is a depressing repetitiveness to the successive enactments of the colonial eco-drama, as if man and nature knew how to write only one scenario and insisted upon staging the same play in theater after theater on an ever-expanding worldwide tour."

Timothy Weiskel, "Agents of Empire: Steps Toward an Ecology of Imperialism," Environmental Review 11, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 275-88, see p. 275.

"Within the various acts of the ecodrama should be included scenes in which men's and women's roles come to center stage and scenes in which Nature 'herself' is an actress."

Carolyn Merchant, "Gender and Environmental History," Journal of American History, 76, no. 4 (March 1990): 1117-1121, quotation on p. 1121.

"The great task for environmental historians is to record and analyze the effects of man's recently achieved control over the natural world. What is needed is a longer-term global, comparative, historical perspective that treats the environment as a meaningful variable."

John Richards, "Documenting Environmental History: Global Patterns of Land Conversion," Environment 26, no. 9, (1984), quotation on p. 37.

"The environmental historian participates in the gulf between the ecological ideal and historical reality, between the two cultures of science and the humanities, and between disinterested objectivity and the ethical obligation of advocacy."

John Opie, "Environmental History: Pitfalls and Opportunities," Environmental Review 7 (1983): 8-16, quotation on p. 15.

"We have been saddled in recent years with a notable set of stock characters, or stereotypes. These include the Noble Savage [and] four joyless rapists--the Forest Service, the farmer, the army engineer, and the lumberman--assaulting Mother Nature, while the Sierra Club purveys chastity belts. . . . Historians who regard conservation as past politics might profit by a spell on the sawmill greenchain, or as trail workers for the Park Service to get some grassroots insights."

Lawrence Rakestraw, "Conservation Historiography: An Assessment," Pacific Historical Review 43 (1972): 271-288, quotation on p. 288.

"The preservation of wilderness areas is but one aspect of [a]series of conflicts, compromises, and accommodations involving use and preservation."

Lawrence Rakestraw, "Conservation Historiography: An Assessment," Pacific Historical Review 43 (1972), 271-288, quotation on p. 283.

"Environmental history... refer[s] to the past contact of man with his total habitat. . . . The environmental historian like the ecologist [s]hould think in terms of wholes, of communities, of interrelationships, and of balances."

Roderick Nash, "American Environmental History: A New Teaching Frontier," Pacific Historical Review 41: 362-372 (1972), quotations on p. 363.

"Environmental history fit[s] into the framework of New Left history. [It is] history "from the bottom up," except that here the exploited element [is] the biota and the land itself."

Roderick Nash, "American Environmental History: A New Teaching Frontier," Pacific Historical Review 41: 362-372 (1972), quotations on p. 363.