The Future of (Environmental) History: A Roundtable Discussion

Alexander Hibberts; Emma Yeo; Islay Grace Shelbourne; Jonathan David Roberts; Kirill Kartashov; Nick Pepper; Alex Worsfold; Robert Suits; Thomas Banbury; Aakriti Suresh

doi:10.1017/S0080440125100285

The Future of (Environmental) History: A Roundtable Discussion

Alexander Hibberts^*, Emma Yeo, Islay Grace Shelbourne, Jonathan David Roberts, Kirill Kartashov, Nick Pepper, Alex Worsfold, Robert Suits, Thomas Banbury, Aakriti Suresh

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of History

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

In April 2023, eighteen scholars from nine different subjects representing the humanities, natural and social sciences came together for a one-day workshop at St John’s College, Durham. Despite our differences, all had one aim: the study of past environmental change and its effects on human societies. Talking across disciplinary divides, we discussed what environmental history is, how it may or may not contribute to tackling the climate crisis, and the problems of sources, scale and temporality. This article collects select conversations into a roundtable format split into four areas: scale, time and space, interdisciplinarity, and the future of environmental history. We argue that environmental history is more usefully understood not as a distinct sub-field of history, but as an interdisciplinary meeting place for innovative collaboration. This also presents a model for future research aimed at tackling the climate crisis at higher education institutions.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-21
Number of pages	20
Journal	Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
Volume	First View
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0080440125100285
Publication status	Published - 17 Jul 2025

Keywords

Environmental history
roundtable
history of disease

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10.1017/S0080440125100285Licence: CC BY

Hibberts_2025_Transactions_Future-Environmental_CC
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Historical Society. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Final published version, 388 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The Future of (Environmental) History: A Roundtable Discussion",

abstract = "In April 2023, eighteen scholars from nine different subjects representing the humanities, natural and social sciences came together for a one-day workshop at St John{\textquoteright}s College, Durham. Despite our differences, all had one aim: the study of past environmental change and its effects on human societies. Talking across disciplinary divides, we discussed what environmental history is, how it may or may not contribute to tackling the climate crisis, and the problems of sources, scale and temporality. This article collects select conversations into a roundtable format split into four areas: scale, time and space, interdisciplinarity, and the future of environmental history. We argue that environmental history is more usefully understood not as a distinct sub-field of history, but as an interdisciplinary meeting place for innovative collaboration. This also presents a model for future research aimed at tackling the climate crisis at higher education institutions.",

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AU - Hibberts, Alexander

AU - Yeo, Emma

AU - Shelbourne, Islay Grace

AU - Roberts, Jonathan David

AU - Kartashov, Kirill

AU - Pepper, Nick

AU - Worsfold, Alex

AU - Suits, Robert

AU - Banbury, Thomas

AU - Suresh, Aakriti

N1 - Funding: The workshop behind this roundtable was made possible by generous funding from the Royal Historical Society.

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AB - In April 2023, eighteen scholars from nine different subjects representing the humanities, natural and social sciences came together for a one-day workshop at St John’s College, Durham. Despite our differences, all had one aim: the study of past environmental change and its effects on human societies. Talking across disciplinary divides, we discussed what environmental history is, how it may or may not contribute to tackling the climate crisis, and the problems of sources, scale and temporality. This article collects select conversations into a roundtable format split into four areas: scale, time and space, interdisciplinarity, and the future of environmental history. We argue that environmental history is more usefully understood not as a distinct sub-field of history, but as an interdisciplinary meeting place for innovative collaboration. This also presents a model for future research aimed at tackling the climate crisis at higher education institutions.

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KW - history of disease

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JF - Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

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The Future of (Environmental) History: A Roundtable Discussion

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Keywords

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