 Explore environmental history in eight books [reading list] Environmental history only emerged a few decades ago but has already established itself as one of the most innovative and important new approaches to history—one that bridges the human and natural world, the humanities and the science, and is truly international in its approach. To understand the field better and showcase some of the recent research, we’re sharing eight of our latest titles in environmental history for you to explore, share, and enjoy. 1. Sweet Fuel: A Political and Environmental History of Brazilian Ethanol by Jennifer EaglinAs the hazards of carbon emissions increase and governments around the world seek to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, the search for clean and affordable alternate energies has become an increasing priority in the twenty-first century. However, one nation has already been producing such a fuel for almost a century: Brazil. Its sugarcane-based ethanol is the most efficient biofuel on the global fuel market, and the South American nation is the largest biofuel exporter in the world. Buy Sweet Fuel
2. Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South by David SilkenatA comprehensive history of American slavery that examines how the environment fundamentally formed enslaved people’s lives and how slavery remade the Southern landscape. Over two centuries, from the establishment of slavery in the Chesapeake to the Civil War, one simple calculation had profound consequences: rather than measuring productivity based on outputs per acre, Southern planters sought to maximize how much labor they could extract from their enslaved workforce. Buy Scars on the Land
3. Unredeemed Land: An Environmental History of Civil War and Emancipation in the Cotton South by Erin Stewart MauldinAn innovative reconsideration of the Civil War’s profound impact on southern history, Unredeemed Land traces the environmental constraints that shaped the rural South’s transition to capitalism during the late nineteenth century. Bridging the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction periods, Unredeemed Land powerfully examines the ways military conflict and emancipation left enduring ecological legacies. Buy Unredeemed Land, new in paperback
4. Panda Nation: The Construction and Conservation of China’s Modern Icon by E. Elena SongsterPanda Nation links the emergence of the giant panda as a national symbol to the development of nature protection in the People’s Republic of China. The panda’s transformation into a national treasure exemplifies China’s efforts in the mid-twentieth century to distinguish itself as a nation through government-directed science and popular nationalism. The story of the panda’s iconic rise offers a striking reflection of China’s recent and dramatic ascent as a nation in global status. Buy Panda Nation
5. Frozen Empires: An Environmental History of the Antarctic Peninsula by Adrian HowkinsPerpetually covered in ice and snow, the mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches southward towards the South Pole where it merges with the largest and coldest mass of ice anywhere on the planet. Yet far from being an otherworldly “Pole Apart,” the region has the most contested political history of any part of the Antarctic Continent. Since the start of the twentieth century, Argentina, Britain, and Chile have made overlapping sovereignty claims, while the United States and Russia have reserved rights to the entire continent. The environment has been at the heart of these disputes over sovereignty, placing the Antarctic Peninsula at a fascinating intersection between diplomatic history and environmental history. Buy Frozen Empires
6. Valuing Clean Air: The EPA and the Economics of Environmental Protection by Charles HalvorsonThe passage of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 marked a sweeping transformation in American politics. In a few short years, the environmental movement pushed Republican and Democratic elected officials to articulate a right to clean air as part of a bevy of new federal guarantees. Valuing Clean Air examines how the environmental concern that propelled the Clean Air Act and the EPA coincided with economic convulsions that shook the liberal state to its core. Buy Valuing Clean Air
7. The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s by Michael GoldfieldThe Southern Key charts the rise of labor activism in each and then examines how and why labor organizers struggled so mightily in the region. Drawing from meticulous and unprecedented archival material and detailed data on four core industries—textiles, timber, coal mining, and steel—Michael Goldfield argues that much of what is important in American politics and society today was largely shaped by the successes and failures of the labor movements of the 1930s and 1940s. Buy The Southern Key, now new in paperback
8. The Making of Our Urban Landscape by Geoffrey TyackBritain was the first country in the world to become an essentially urban county. And England is still one of the most urbanized countries in the world. The town and the city is the world that most of us inhabit and know best. But what do we actually know about our urban world—and how it was created? Buy The Making of Our Urban Landscape
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 The VSI podcast season three: ageing, Pakistan, slang, psychopathy, and more The Very Short Introductions Podcast offers a concise and original introduction to a selection of our VSI titles from the authors themselves. From ageing to modern drama, Pakistan to creativity, listen to season three of the podcast and see where your curiosity takes you! AgeingIn this episode, Nancy A. Pachana introduces ageing, an activity with which we are familiar from childhood, and the lifelong dynamic changes in biological, psychological, and social functioning associated with it. Listen to “Ageing” (episode 43) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. PakistanIn this episode, Pippa Virdee introduces Pakistan, one of the two nation-states of the Indian sub-continent that emerged in 1947 but has a deep past covering 4,000 years. Listen to “Pakistan” (episode 42) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. Henry JamesIn this episode, Susan Mizruchi introduces American author Henry James, who created a unique body of fiction that includes Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Turn of the Screw. Listen to “Henry James” (episode 41) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. SecularismIn this episode, Andrew Copson introduces secularism, an increasingly hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe that is more complex than simply “state versus religion.” Listen to “Secularism” (episode 40) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. DemographyIn this episode, Sarah Harper introduces demography, the study of people, which addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact certain factors will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations. Listen to “Demography” (episode 39) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. PsychopathyIn this episode, Essi Viding introduces psychopathy, a personality disorder that has long captured the public imagination. Despite the public fascination with psychopathy, there is often a very limited understanding of the condition, and several myths about psychopathy abound. Listen to “Psychopathy” (episode 38) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. Modern dramaIn this episode, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr introduce modern drama, the tale of which is a story of extremes, testing both audiences and actors to their limits through hostility and contrarianism. Listen to “Modern drama” (episode 37) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. SlangIn this episode, Jonathon Green introduces slang. Slang has been recorded since at least 1500 AD, and today’s vocabulary, taken from every major English-speaking country, runs to over 125,000 slang words and phrases. Listen to “Slang” (episode 36) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. CreativityIn this episode, Vlad Glăveanu introduces creativity, a term that emerged in the 19th century but only became popular around the mid-20th century despite creative expression existing for thousands of years. Listen to “Creativity” (episode 35) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 How research abstracts succeed and fail The abstract of a research article has a simple remit: to faithfully summarize the reported research. After the title, it’s the most read section of the article. It’s freely available on the publisher’s website and in online databases. Crucially, it makes the case to the reader for reading the article in full. Alas, not all abstracts succeed. Some take the notion of abstraction to extremes. This example is from a physics article: Unitarity and geometrical effects are discussed for photon-photon scattering.
It has just ten words. Fortunately, most abstracts say rather more, though it’s possible to say too much. The next example, from a geology article, has over 370 words. It starts: Diagenesis of the Holocene-Pleistocene volcanogenic sediments of the Mexican Basin produced, in strata of gravel and sand, 1H2O- and 2H2O-smectite, kaolinite, R3-2H2O-smectite (0.75)-kaolinite, R1-2H2O-smectite (0.75)-kaolinite, R3-kaolinite (0.75)-2H2O-smectite and R1-1H2O-smectite (0.75)-kaolinite. Smectite platelets…
It continues in a similar vein for a further 350 words, accumulating more and more detail. The reason for the work is hinted at, but only becomes clear in the full article, at which point it’s too late. Some abstracts introduce citations to previous research to provide background, contrary to the expectation that abstractions stand alone. In practice, citations can block the reader’s progress, as in this example from a remote-sensing article: The purpose of this paper is to extend the stationary stochastic model defined in [1] to a time evolving sea state and platform motion.
The reference pointed to by “[1]” isn’t attached to the abstract, and the source article is obviously elsewhere. Yet without it, the rest of the text is difficult to appreciate. Similar problems can occur with abbreviations explained only in the article. Some abstracts confuse their remit by summarizing the paper rather than its content. The shift to meta-reporting can lead to uninformative boiler-plate text. This example is from a medical education article: Implications of these results are discussed.
It’s uninformative because readers already know that most research articles contain a discussion section where, by definition, results and their implications are discussed. Some abstracts expand their remit to include personal research plans. This example is from a clinical article: We plan to investigate why general practitioners are not complying with the pathway.
It’s common to find research aspirations in internal reports and in research grant applications, where they have a specific function. But published in an abstract, they can present a reader working in the same area with a difficult choice. Some abstracts expand their remit even further with a self-evaluation of the research. This example is from a finance article: We believe this study will benefit academics, regulators, policymakers and investors.
The problem is that the reader may not see these pronouncements as truly impartial, with the result that the authority of the article is weakened, not strengthened. Abstracts can of course fail in many other ways, for example, omitting caveats, adding new information, exaggerating certainty, or providing no more than an advertisement, a piece of puffery. How to write a successful abstractIn the light of all this, what should go into a successful abstract? Some clinical journals settle the matter by imposing a structured format. But most journal and conference proceedings don’t and may offer little or no detailed guidance to the author, who may be left confused about what’s needed. One starting point is to think of the abstract not as a condensed version of the paper that preserves the original structure and proportions, but as a mini- or micro-paper in its own right, with certain basic elements: - the context or scope of the work
- the research question or other reason for the work, if relevant
- the approach or methods
- a key result or two
- a conclusion, if appropriate, or other implications of the work.
Naturally the weight given to each element depends on the research—whether it’s experimental, observational, or theoretical, and whether the expected audience is general or specialized. How much to write about each element is then a balance between including detail and retaining the reader’s interest. Within those constraints, it’s important to identify any critical assumptions, non-standard methods, and limitations on the findings so that the scope and potential application of the research is clear. The reader shouldn’t discover on reading the article that the abstract was misleading. Here’s an example of a well-written abstract from a neuroscience article: An unresolved question in neuroscience and psychology is how the brain monitors performance to regulate behavior. It has been proposed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), on the medial surface of the frontal lobe, contributes to performance monitoring by detecting errors. In this study, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine ACC function. Results confirm that this region shows activity during erroneous responses. However, activity was also observed in the same region during correct responses under conditions of increased response competition. This suggests that the ACC detects conditions under which errors are likely to occur rather than errors themselves. From C. S. Carter et al., Science 1998, 280, 747-749. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.
Successive sentences describe the context, the reason for the work, the methods, some results, and an implication. According to Elsevier’s Scopus database, the article has been cited over 2,500 times. Encapsulating a body of research so effectively usually takes repeated rewriting. The timing, though, can be a challenge, since the abstract is often prepared last, when the main sections of the paper have found a settled form. It then risks being rushed while material is assembled for submission for publication. Despite these pressures, the abstract needs as much attention as any other section of the paper. After all, if it doesn’t do its job, the reader may turn to other abstracts that do. And the published article may languish unretrieved and unseen, waiting in vain for the recognition it deserves. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 Take a virtual tour of America’s national parks: the Grand Staircase Visitors to “scientific treasures” (sites with significant science content) often treat each site on its own. While this may be fine in many cases, in others it leaves the visitor without a complete picture of a certain aspect of science. Sometimes scientific treasures ought to be visited together with other, similar sites. One example of a synergistic relationship between scientific treasures in the United States is the trio of National Parks: Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, and Bryce Canyon. Here a visitor to all three is treated to a more complete picture of the West’s geology than from each park on its own. This triad of National Parks makes up the Grand Staircase, a formation of multiple cliffs retreating to the north. Explore the images for the complete picture of the Grand Staircase formation: [ See image gallery at blog.oup.com] We hope that you have a chance to gain a fuller picture of the geology of the southwestern United States by visiting all three scientific treasures. Which other sites would you recommend viewing as a group to give visitors a more complete idea of their scientific significance? OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 SHAPE and societal recovery from crises The SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Arts for People and the Economy) initiative advocates for the value of the social sciences, humanities, and arts subject areas in helping us to understand the world in which we live and find solutions to global issues. As societies around the world respond to the immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, research from SHAPE disciplines has the potential to illuminate how societies process and recover from various social crises. In recognition of the essential role these disciplines play for societal recovery, we have curated a hub of SHAPE research which looks back on how we have rebuilt from social crises in the past, how societies process living through extraordinary times, and considers the next steps societies can take on the road to recovery. Lessons from the pastThroughout history, individuals and societies have encountered periods of crisis caused by factors including war, natural disasters, and health pandemics. Responses to these crises can provide a vital insight into how we respond to future global threats. In a review of how societies respond to peril, Robert Wuthnow suggests that, “nothing, it appears, evokes discussion of moral responsibility quite as clearly as the prospect of impending doom.” Wuthnow examines how societies have responded to four major threats: nuclear holocaust, weapons of mass destruction, concern about a global pandemic, and the threat of global climate change, and finds that, “the picture of humanity that emerges in this literature is one of can-do problem solvers. Doing something, almost anything, affirms our humanity.” Looking further back, the US Civil War also had a profound impact on many people and touched women’s lives in contradictory ways. Hannah Rosen’s chapter “Women, the Civil War, and Reconstruction” examines the wartime and postwar experiences primarily of black and white but also Native American women and provides insights into how we can reconstruct a fairer society following conflicts. Meanwhile, in Total War: An Emotional History, Claire Langhamer examines the role emotions played in the immediate aftermath of WWII, approaching our relationship to feeling through the lens of social, as well as cultural, history. How we choose to commemorate the past is also a key question, explored by Joshua Gamson in an article published in Social Problems about the US National AIDS Memorial Grove. Looking back on the economic implications of social crises, Mark Bailey discusses how the plague acted as a catalyst for the vast transformation of trading routes in North Sea economies. This economic shift has been reflected in the COVID-19 pandemic and, in response, authors from the Journal of Consumer Research have created a conceptual framework for understanding how consumers and markets have collectively responded over the short term and long term to threats that disrupt our routines, lives, and even the fabric of society. Literature, classics, and the arts also provide an avenue to explore the effects of social crises. Laura E. Tanner’s blog post explores the works of author Marilynne Robinson. According to Tanner, these works provide us with tools for coping during lockdown by exploring the familiar, whilst her characters also navigate the threat of mortality and how trauma disrupts the comforts of the everyday. In her chapter “Post-Ceasefire Antigones and Northern Ireland”, Isabelle Torrance traces the evocation of Antigone in the context of the Northern Irish conflict. In this way, literature provides a mirror to explore and process contemporary social crises. Music history also provides a window into past responses to social traumas. In her chapter “Embodying Sonic Resonance as/after Trauma – Vibration, Music, and Medicine”, Jillian C. Rogers shows that interwar French musicians understood music making as a therapeutic, vibrational, bodily practice which offered antidotes to the unpredictable and harmful vibrations of warfare. Living through extraordinary timesAs the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects have spread across the globe, nations and individuals have adapted rapidly to dramatic shifts in how we experience the world. Recent history can provide a fascinating insight into how communities have lived through extraordinary times in the past. In Pandemics, Publics, and Narrative, the authors explore how the general public experienced the 2009 swine flu pandemic by examining the stories of individuals, their reflections on news and expert advice given to them, and how they considered vaccination, social isolation, and other infection control measures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, historians have considered how we will write the histories of 2020. In “Documenting COVID-19”, Kathleen Franz and Catherine Gudis explore people’s keen awareness of the “historic” moment in which we are living, and the questions it poses for historians: how do we ethically document our current social, public health, and economic crises, and in doing so help to dismantle structural inequalities? In her article “Slow History”, published in The American Historical Review, Mary Lindemann asks whether the pandemic provides an opportunity to evaluate the “doing” of history and to isolate what really matters in research, writing, and instruction. Arguing that we should learn to value a slow, painstaking approach to our work, Lindemann argues that “historians are, after all, long-distance runners not sprinters.” Among the many frontline workers enduring the COVID-19 pandemic are social workers, who continued to support people through a period of unprecedented change. A 2020 article from Social Work—“Voices from the Frontlines: Social Workers Confront the COVID-19 Pandemic”—explores how these key workers operated in the US, how they were coping with their own risks, and how social work as a profession anticipated the needs of vulnerable communities during the early stages of the US health crises. The pandemic has also presented specific challenges for social workers interacting with children; a paper from Children & Schools delves into nine ethical concerns facing school social workers when they must rely on electronic communication platforms. A philosophical approach allows us to explore human emotions and ethics during major world threats. In their chapter on “Emotional resilience”, Ann Cooper Albright explores resilience in the face of threats—from natural disasters to school bullies—finding that emotional resilience provides the opportunity for lasting transformation: “often in returning and remembering, we find that we no longer want what we had before.“ The road to recoveryLiving through these extraordinary times, the COVID-19 pandemic poses some important questions for the future. How do we rebuild from the economic, social, and emotional traumas of the past? Charlotte Lyn Bright’s Social Work Research article considers the vital role social workers play in supporting society and individuals by looking at the unique skills they employ in their work during difficult times. Meanwhile, in her paper on “Community development in higher education”, Lesley Wood explores how academics can ensure their community-based research makes a difference by discussing the socio-structural inequalities that influence community participation. In piece for the OUPblog, Nicole Hassoun calls for universal, legally enforced human rights access to essential medicines and healthcare, arguing that, “protecting human rights can help us increase our Global Health Impact.” The study of the past provides a vital tool to help societies rebuild in the future. In “Making Progress: Disaster Narratives and the Art of Optimism in Modern America”, Kevin Rozario examines the role of disaster writings and “narrative imagination” in helping Americans to conceive of disasters as instruments of progress, arguing that this perspective has contributed greatly to the nation’s resilience in the face of natural disasters. In this blog piece “Listen now before we choose to forget”, oral historian Mark Cave describes how memory is pliable; our recollections are continually reshaped by our own changing experiences and the influence of collective interpretations. In 2020, Cave writes, the Black Lives Matter protests, divisive partisan politics, and anger over extended lockdowns were all influencing our memories of the pandemic. Cave further explores an oral history project conducted among New Orleans residents following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which “filled a deep need within our community to reflect and make sense of the experience of the storm and its aftermath.” Cave’s research will be vital for future historians considering how to study and understand the COVID-19 pandemic “at a time when history is clearly ‘in the making’.” Literature continues to provide our society with a tool to understand and process trauma. In her blog post “Why literature must be part of the language of recovery from crisis”, Carmen Bugan explores trauma and social recovery in poetry, and its pertinence during the COVID-19 crises. Pandemic life has underscored how digital technology can foster intimate connections. Research from Nathan Rambukkana discusses how this influx of digital connection has fostered a mode of interaction know as “distant sociality,” and asks whether this is here to stay following life under lockdown. Looking much further to the future, Pasi Heikkurinen discusses the end of the human-dominated geological epoch and the potential technological advances needed to make a non-human dominated planet sustainable. Heikkurinen’s chapter provides sustainability scholars and policymakers with an opportunity “to deliberate not only on the proper kind of technology or the amount of technology needed, but also to consider technology as a way to relate to the world, others, and oneself.” The impact of COVID-19 on the global economy is profound, and yet economists must grapple with how this impact will shape the future. In their chapter “The Interactional Foundations of Economic Forecasting”, Werner Reichmann explores how economic forecasters produce legitimate and credible predictions of the economic future, despite most of the economy being transmutable and indeterminate. Meanwhile, in “Why we can be cautiously optimistic for the future of the retail industry”, Alan Treadgold explores the new retail landscape following the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there is unprecedented uncertainty for retail outlets, Treadgold argues “there are substantial opportunities for reinvention also.” Music also has the power to enact social healing and transformation following crises. In their chapter “Unchained Melody: The Rise of Orality and Therapeutic Singing”, June Boyce-Tillman explores therapeutic approaches to singing, finding that “singing has the ability to strengthen people physically and emotionally,” which brings “individuals and communities together in order to provide healing at the deepest level.” SHAPE researchSHAPE research is an essential component of all societies and will be critical for rebuilding from the global COVID-19 crisis. In “Humanities of transformation: From crisis and critique towards the emerging integrative humanities”, Sverker Sörlin evaluates the efforts to enhance and incentivize the humanities in the among Nordic countries in the last quarter century, finding a far richer and more complex image of quality in the humanities following structural education reform in 1990. Meanwhile, Jack Spaapen and Gunnar Sivertsen assess the societal impact of SHAPE subjects, arguing that the social sciences and humanities have an obligation to assist the main challenges faced by people and governments. As governments, universities, and research institutions consider where and how they focus their efforts as the world tentatively begins to explore the idea of recovery, the range of research that we’ve gathered here demonstrates that, while science and technology must play a crucial role, a recovery without SHAPE will be no recovery at all. Featured image by Ryoji Iwata via Unsplash OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
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