Premodern climate and environmental history

This article looks at the environmental history of the empire by looking at histories of environmental change in the tropics by pioneering colonial scientists and by contemporary historians who are carving out the domain of colonial environmental history. The article argues that the development of an environmental sensibility can be traced to the encounter of seventeenth and eighteenth century Western Europeans especially naturalists, medical officers and administrators with the startlingly unfamiliar environments of the tropics and with the damage done to these environments.

Have we been making the environment worse while knowing more about how it works? Since the nineteenth century, the rapid advancement of technologies has led to an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of the natural world. Science has helped explain the vast array of environmental processes. However, we have also become the frontal force of worsening conditions of the natural environment. This talk examines the history of drought from an area in eastern mainland Southeast Asia, the core of what would later become modern Vietnam. It shows, on the one hand, why drought would stir up the most pressing social and political crises in the premodern period. On the other hand, it explores the historical context that helped consolidate the premodern Vietnamese people’s resilience to drought. Most importantly, this history uncovers a sustained ecological culture which compellingly asks us to rethink the way we have bonded with nature. Virtual lecture via Zoom Webinar.