Reorienting World Environmental History: Pedagogy and Scholarship on Cold Places

This article focuses on the teaching of world environmental history and makes a case for dedicating attention to cold places. It draws upon the experiences of the authors in designing and leading undergraduate courses centred on the high-latitude and high-altitude regions of the globe. In class, cold places were presented to students as sites of cultural encounter, windows on the history of science and technology and bridges between histories of industrialisation, empire, and the environment. The article highlights the pedagogical value of specific class materials while providing an overview of literature situated at the nexus of cold places and global environmental history. It closes with reflections on students' responses as well as the contribution that historicising cold places makes to the mission of the environmental humanities.