Die Grenzen der Umweltgeschichte

Environmental history, as it evolved in Germany during the last 10–15 years, has mainly been a history of pollution within the disciplinary boundaries of social history. The present article pleads for an extended environmental history following the research program of human ecology.

For this purpose, a model of explanation and research is developed, containing the following four stages of analysis:

(1) the analysis of the structure of past nature-culture systems, considering the elements of the ecosystems involved as well as explicit human actions and implicit human behaviour, so far as they have an impact on the environment;

(2) the analysis of past nature-culture systems asking if they show a tendency toward stability or change;

(3) the classification of the main historical stages of nature-culture systems, covering the universal history of mankind;

(4) the search of “forerunners” of present pollution problems.

The article emphasizes that an ecologically sound environmental history must necessarily cooperate with the natural sciences, albeit there are great institutional difficulties for real interdisciplinary cooperation. The sceptical conclusion is, that regarding the difficulties of such an cooperation the main subject of future historical research concerning the nature-culture relationship will be the intellectual history of mentalities, theories and major world-views.