An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century

New Approaches to Asian History

by Michael H. Fisher

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh contain one-fifth of humanity, are home to many biodiversity hotspots, and are among the nations most subject to climatic stresses. By surveying their environmental history, we can gain major insights into the causes and implications of the Indian subcontinent's current conditions. This accessible new survey begins roughly 100 million years ago, when continental drift moved India from the South Pole and across the Indian Ocean, forming the Himalayan Mountains and creating monsoons. Coverage continues to the twenty-first century, taking readers beyond independence from colonial rule. The new nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have produced rising populations and have stretched natural resources, even as they have become increasingly engaged with climate change. To understand the region's current and future pressing issues, Michael H. Fisher argues that we must engage with the long and complex history of interactions among its people, land, climate, flora, and fauna.

Genres: India, History

312 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 18, 2018

About the author

Dr. Michael H. Fisher is the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College, where he offers a range of courses on the history of South Asia, the environmental history of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan, Mahatma Gandhi, and early travel narratives about India. He earned his M.A. and his Ph.D. in History with a concentration on South Asia from the University of Chicago. He also holds a B.A. in English from Trinity College.

Professor Fisher has published 12 books and more than 50 articles on aspects of Indian history. His special interests include the interactions between Indians and Europeans, both in India and in Europe, from the 16th century onward. His books include biographies of Indian settlers and visitors to Britain and histories of the British Empire as it originated and developed in India. His most recent book is A Short History of the Mughal Empire.

Since 1971, Professor Fisher has lived, researched, and taught for long periods in India, with briefer trips to Pakistan and Bangladesh. He has been a visiting faculty fellow at the University of Delhi, University of Hyderabad, University of Allahabad, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. Professor Fisher has also served on the major committees of the American Historical Association and the American Institute of Indian Studies, among others.

Reviews

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not an environmental history of India. This is an outline of Indian history, with an occasional sentence about nature inserted as lip-service to the title. In addition, these are sentences that did not seem to need any independent research activity on the side of the author. You expected a list of major agricultural products in each period? Not here. You wanted a map of hydrological works, deforestation, or extent of species? Nope. A timeline or a quantitative discussion of major droughts, floods, storm records? Look elsewhere.

Such a grand topic, such a disappointment.

[Mills College Library]

304.20954 F5353 2018