Environments: the 79th Anglo American Conference of Historians, 1-2 July 2010

This July the Institute of Historical Research’s flagship annual event, the Anglo-American Conference of Historians, is taking as its theme Environments. Over the last two decades environmental history has developed at an amazing pace, broadening and deepening our understanding of human interaction with nature, climate, landscape and resources across two millennia of historical time. Our conference will explore where environmental history has been and where it is going, its relationship to other scholarly disciplines, and the ways in which historians of the environment can inform global green awareness today.

Our keynote speakers are William Beinart, Alfred Crosby, John McNeill, Harriet Ritvo and Donald Worster, and we shall also feature several major book launches over the two days.

See here for the full programme.

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Our plenary speakers

Professor William Beinart is Rhodes Professor of Race Relations at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he teaches environmental history and southern African history. He is President of the African Studies Association of the UK. His publications include Environment and Empire (Oxford University Press, 2007) and he has recently completed a book, with Luvoyo Wotshela, on the history of the prickly pear in South Africa.

Professor Alfred Crosby is Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. His 1976 work, America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, received the Medical Writers Association Award for Best Book on a Medical Subject for Laymen, and in 2001 he received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society for Environmental History. His other books include Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy (W W Norton & Co., 2006).

Professor John McNeill has taught at Georgetown Univeristy since 1985, and was appointed Professor in 2006. He has held two Fulbright awards, a Guggenhaim fellowship and a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center. His latest book is Mosquito Empires (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and previous works include The Mountains of the Mediterranean World (Cambridge University Press, 1992).  

Professor Harriet Ritvo is Arthur J Conner Professor of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and President of the American Society for Environmental History. She teaches British and environmental history, as well as the history of natural history and her recent publications include The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and Modern Environmentalism (Chicago University Press, 2009).

Professor Donald Worster is Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas. He is considered one of the founders of, and leading figures in, the field of environmental history. He serves on the Board of Directors of The Land Institute in Kansas and his recent publications include A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir (Oxford University Press, 2008).

Publishers' fair

Every year, an integral part of the Anglo-American Conference is our conference exhibition and publishers' fair, where delegates and university staff and students are able to browse new titles, speak to authors and editors, and discover new publications and organisations. Housed in the beautiful art deco Senate House, the publishers' fair is an ideal way to publicise new titles or projects; we are also able to host book launches and meetings throughout the conference. For more information on exhibiting at the conference, or advertising in the conference programme, please contact the Conference Office at the email address below.

Programme committee

• Vinita Damodaran (Sussex)
• Catherine Delano-Smith (IHR)
• James Galloway (IHR)
• Ludmilla Jordanova (King’s College, London)
• Sujit Sivasundaram (LSE)
• Miles Taylor (IHR)
• Frank Trentmann (Birkbeck)

Conference Office contact

Conference Officer at environments@lon.ac.uk.