International Review of Environmental History

International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It publishes on all thematic and geographical topics of environmental history, but especially encourages articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘Global South’. This includes but is not limited to Australasia, East and South East Asia, Africa and South America.

International Review of Environmental History’s editorial board includes historians, scientists and geographers, as well as scholars from other backgrounds, who work on environmental history and related disciplines, such as ecology, garden history and landscape studies. The methodological breadth of International Review of Environmental History distinguishes it from other environmental history journals, as does its attempt to draw together cognate research areas in garden history and landscape studies.

The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. We encourage scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations and timescales. We embrace interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes.

International Review of Environmental History is happy to consider future special issues focusing on themes drawn from conferences or collaborations.

Ownership and management

The journal was created and developed by James Beattie. An anonymous donor provides funding to the journal for an editorial assistant. The Centre for Environmental History at The Australian National University sponsors the journal, and ANU Press publishes a free electronic version and a print-on-demand hard copy of the journal. It is also supported by the Environmental Research Institute of the University of Waikato, New Zealand: www.waikato.ac.nz/eri. Our open-access policy means that articles will be available free to scholars around the world, ensuring high citation rates and impact in and beyond the field of history. The journal is listed on Directory of Open Access Journals, ProQuest, InformIT, NLA National edeposit (accessed through Trove), ANU Open Research digital repository, EBSCO and Scopus.

Publishing schedule

International Review of Environmental History is published twice a year, in April and November. Special issues may also be published either within or outside the normal publication schedule of the journal.

Access

Fully open-access electronic publication with a print-on-demand paperback copy option.

Copyright and licensing

All issues published from Volume 4(1) onwards are published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Issues published previous to this are under a standard copyright licence. Authors retain copyright of articles published in this journal.

Revenue sources

An anonymous donor provides funding to the journal for an editorial assistant.

Author fees

There are no fees charged to authors for publishing work in the International Review of Environmental History. Authors are, however, expected to pay where required any fees arising from using copyright works within their articles.

Peer review process

All articles submitted to this journal undergo a double-blind peer-review process. The peer-review process is arranged by the Journal Editor, who then decides upon publication, amendment or rejection. Manuscripts that undergo amendment may be subject to further review by the Journal Editor or an external reviewer.

Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

If the Journal Editor receives a credible allegation of misconduct by an author, reviewer, or editor, then they have a duty to investigate the matter with ANU Press, in consultation with relevant Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board. If the claim is substantiated, the Editor will follow the guidelines set out by COPE for retracting the article in question.

If the Journal Editor receives convincing evidence that the main substance or conclusions of an article published in the journal are incorrect, then, in consultation with the journal’s Associate Editors and/or Editorial Board and ANU Press, the Journal Editor will ensure the publication of an appropriate notice of correction.

Publication ethics

International Review of Environmental History (IREH) follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and its Best Practice Guidelines. Authors, editors and reviewers should familiarise themselves with these guidelines.

Duties/responsibilities of authors

Authors are responsible for providing:

  • original submissions of articles, fully referenced according to the journal’s guidelines, which follow Chicago style with Australian spelling. For more details on Chicago style, please see: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html (incorrect referencing will mean that articles may not be considered for publication)
  • payment for all costs and copyright permissions of all images
  • filling out journal copyright and author’s declaration forms, which will be provided to authors once an article is accepted for publication
  • acknowledgement of any material that has been previously published
  • acknowledging any external research grants/conflicts of interest.

Duties/responsibilities of editors

  • The Editor of International Review of Environmental History may reject a submitted manuscript without formal peer review if he/she considers it to be inappropriate for the journal and outside its scope.
  • The Editor reserves the right to have final decisions on the content of all journal issues.
  • The Editor keeps the peer-review process confidential.
  • The Editor will make all reasonable effort to process submissions on time.
  • The Editor will delegate the peer review of any original self-authored research article to a member of the editorial or advisory board as appropriate.

Duties/responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for ensuring:

  • timely production of reviews
  • fair and unbiased assessment
  • they follow the guidelines for review document of the journal, which will be provided to the reviewer once they accept the position.

In addition, reviewers will keep in mind the following guidelines for the review: https://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_Guidelines_For_Peer_Reviewers_2.pdf

Submission

Author(s) submitting an original manuscript to IREH must present unpublished work that is not under consideration elsewhere. Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work, in whole or in part without proper citation is not accepted by the journal. IREH may check manuscripts submitted to the journal for originality using anti-plagiarism software.

  • Authors must be aware of, and comply with, best practice in publication ethics including, but not limited to, plagiarism, manipulation of figures, declaration of competing interests and compliance with policies on research ethics.
  • Reviewers and editors are required to treat manuscripts fairly and in confidence, and to declare any competing interests.

Plagiarism

International Review of Environmental History (IREH) will not accept plagiarised articles. Plagiarism is ‘the process or practice of using another person's ideas or work and pretending that it is your own’ (Cambridge Dictionary).

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

  • Copying or downloading figures, photographs, pictures or diagrams without acknowledgement of sources.
  • Directly copying text from other sources without attribution, including text downloaded from the internet.
  • Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language without attribution.
  • Copying ideas, images or data from other sources without acknowledging the source.
  • Reusing text from your own previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor.

Misconduct

In situations of alleged misconduct, IREH will follow COPE guidance. In cases of misconduct, if necessary, we will correct or clarify the record. This may include retraction, issuing a correction or expression of concern, as per COPE guidelines.

Additional resources on publication ethics are available from COPE and WAME.

Acknowledgements

Please note, this is drawn up from COPE guidelines, and from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/ethical-publishing-practice. IREH thanks the advice of Richard White, Manager, Copyright & Open Access, University of Otago/ Te Whare Wananga o Otago.

Editorial team

Editor: James Beattie, The Centre for Science in Society, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand; Research Associate, the Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University, Australia; Senior Research Associate, Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa; Senior Research Associate, World Centre for Environmental History, Sussex University, United Kingdom

Associate Editors:

  • Brett M. Bennett, University of Western Sydney, Australia; University of Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa
  • Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia, Australia
  • Ruth Morgan, Australian National University, Australia

Copyeditor: Austin Gee

Contact: james.beattie@vuw.ac.nz

Board members

  • Courtney Addison, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Eugene N. Anderson, University of California, Riverside, United States of America
  • Alessandro Antonello, Flinders University, Australia
  • Maohong Bao包茂宏, Peking University, People’s Republic of China
  • Greg Barton, University of Western Sydney, Australia
  • David Biggs, University of California, Riverside, United States of America
  • Tom Brooking, University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Nicholas Brown, The Australian National University, Australia
  • Matthew Chew, Arizona State University, United States of America
  • Bruce Clarkson, University of Waikato
  • Christopher J. Courtney, Durham University
  • Rosi Crane, Otago Museum
  • Gregory T. Cushman, Department of History, University of Arizona
  • Vinita Damodaran, University of Sussex
  • Rohan D'Souza, Kyoto University
  • Ian Duggan, University of Waikato
  • Sonja Dumpelmann, Harvard University
  • Fa-ti Fan, Binghamton University
  • James R. Fleming, Colby College
  • Guorong Gao, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
  • Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia
  • Tom Griffiths, The Australian National University
  • Eugenia Herbert, Mount Holyoke College
  • Katie Holmes, La Trobe University
  • Adrian Howkins, Colorado State University
  • Tom Isern, North Dakota State University
  • Nancy Jacobs, Brown University
  • Ryan Tucker Jones, Oregon State University
  • Peter Lavelle, Temple University
  • Joseph Lawson, Newcastle University
  • Robert B. Marks, Whittier College
  • Edward Melillo, Amherst College
  • Simone Muller, Rachel Carson Center, Ludwigs Maximilian University, Munich
  • Grace Moore, University of Otago
  • Emily O'Gorman, Macquarie University
  • Hiroki Oikawa及川敬貴, Yokohama National University
  • José Pádua, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
  • Eric Pawson, University of Canterbury
  • Ulrike Plath, Tallinn University
  • Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
  • Rebecca Rice, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
  • Libby Robin, The Australian National University
  • Kirstie Ross, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
  • Cordula Scherer, Trinity College Dublin
  • Fei Sheng费晟, Sun Yat-Sen University
  • Lance van Sittert, University of Cape Town
  • Paul Star, University of Waikato
  • Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University
  • Fiona Williamson, Singapore Management University

 

Please send article submissions or abstracts to the Editor, Associate Professor James Beattie, Science in Society, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6142, New Zealand. Email: james.beattie@vuw.ac.nz

Abstracts should be no more than 200 words, and include a list of keywords. Articles should be in the range 5,000 to 8,000 words (including footnotes), although longer submissions may be considered after consultation with the Editor.

Style and referencing: please use footnotes in Chicago style, and follow Australian spelling. For more details on Chicago style, please see: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

The journal also accepts letters and short ‘think pieces’. Please contact the Editor for further information.


International Review of Environmental History: Volume 9, Issue 2, 2023 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: February 2024
The histories and legacies of extraction and toxicity are innumerable. Globally, these forces have both facilitated and been a by-product of industrial growth, technological advancement and nation-building for centuries, but so too have they enabled and exacerbated environmental degradation, structural inequality, and the continued colonisation of lands and peoples. In addressing the histories and legacies of extraction and toxicity, this special issue of the International Review of Environmental History draws attention to several of the most pressing themes taken up by historians dealing with these processes. The papers within explore how extraction and toxicity have been woven into the colonial fabric of various countries, the ways that the exploitation and contamination of specific landscapes have come to define the history of such places and spaces, the response of various groups to these processes, and the extent to which long-term environmental consequences wrought by extractive practices and their toxic by-products are—in many cases—yet to be revealed. The articles in this special issue span Australia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Southern Ocean, consider the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and draw on a range of disciplinary methods and perspectives. What binds them together is a deep engagement with the significant legacies of extraction and toxicity that endure into the present and inform contemporary environmental debates.

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 9, Issue 1, 2023 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: July 2023
Inspired by recent scholarship on disaster history and situated within the broader field of environmental history, this special issue highlights structural factors that have exacerbated the effects of extreme weather and explores how states and societies have responded and adapted (or not) during and after disasters. The five case studies all focus on the Indian Ocean World (IOW), a macro-region stretching from eastern Africa to East Asia and Southeast Asia, and align chronologically with the so-called Anthropocene, the period during which the industrial Global North began to leave its indelible imprint on the world’s climatic systems. They build on a small but growing scholarship that looks at historical disasters and disaster responses within the IOW, arguing collectively for the application of historical methodologies in approaching the challenge of extreme weather now and in the future.

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 8, Issue 2, 2022 »

Edited by: James Beattie, Brett Bennett
Publication date: December 2022
The latest issue of the International Review of Environmental History ranges widely and deeply across several topics, periods and continents. The first part contains six articles, on environmental history teaching; ancient populations and plague; European geographical knowledge of India; environment, architecture and design; introduced ship-borne rats and mice; and environmental change on sub-Antarctic islands. The second part is a special-issue section, edited by Shoko Mizuno (Komazawa University, Tokyo), on the hybridity of colonial and postcolonial forestry in environmental history. Its articles investigate the production and circulation of knowledge in colonial British, postcolonial and international forestry networks, including during the development of the East Pegu Yoma forestry project in Burma (Myanmar) and the spread of invasive lantana in India.
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International Review of Environmental History: Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022 »

Edited by: James Beattie, Brett Bennett
Publication date: March 2022
This timely special issue of the International Review of Environmental History focuses on animals and epidemics in modern East Asia. The global pandemic of Covid-19 has forced us to think more deeply about the interrelations between animals, both human and non-human, and epidemics. Moreover, the intense attention on East Asia in this context demands that we study the region in the thematic matrix of health, environment, animals, sociocultural traditions, and geopolitics. This collection comprises two parts. The first part consists of three research articles and an extensive commentary. The articles examine, respectively, rabies and rabid dogs in early twentieth-century China, venomous snakes and tropical medicine in colonial Taiwan, and epidemics and animal rights movements in contemporary China. The second part includes three reflective essays on topics of immediate relevance: animals and health campaigns in Mao-era China; insects, particularly silkworms, in vaccine research; and the dominant but flawed scientific paradigm of emerging zoonotic epidemics. The essays are followed by a broad commentary that provides a global and comparative perspective.
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International Review of Environmental History: Volume 7, Issue 2, 2021 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: November 2021
The second issue of International Review of Environmental History for 2021 features contributions on limpets and global environmental history, US bird conservation, soyabean agriculture in South America, settler environmental change in Aotearoa New Zealand, woodlands, communities and ecologies in Australia, and irrigation and agriculture in Australia.
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International Review of Environmental History: Volume 7, Issue 1, 2021 »

Edited by: James Beattie, Ruth Morgan, Margaret Cook
Publication date: June 2021
Arising from the ‘Placing Gender’ workshop held in Melbourne in 2018, this collection brings together contributions that demonstrate different approaches to undertaking gender analysis in environmental history. Focusing on non-Indigenous women and men in the Anglo-world from the mid-nineteenth century, some adopt new tools to excavate familiar terrain, while others listen closely to voices that have rarely been heard in the field. This issue argues that recasting the making of settler places in terms of their gendered production and experience not only enriches their own environmental history, but also broadens the historian’s enquiry to encompass the other lands implicated in the production of settler places.
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International Review of Environmental History: Volume 6, Issue 2, 2020 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: November 2020
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history.  It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal's goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 6, Issue 1, 2020 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: May 2020
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history.  It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal's goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 5, Issue 2, 2019 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: November 2019
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history.  It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal's goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 5, Issue 1, 2019 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: May 2019
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history.  It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal's goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 4, Issue 2, 2018 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: September 2018
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history.  It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal's goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 4, Issue 1, 2018 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: May 2018
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 3, Issue 2, 2017 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: October 2017
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 3, Issue 1, 2017 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: June 2017
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 2, 2016 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: September 2016
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase

International Review of Environmental History: Volume 1, 2015 »

Edited by: James Beattie
Publication date: August 2015
International Review of Environmental History takes an interdisciplinary and global approach to environmental history. It encourages scholars to think big and to tackle the challenges of writing environmental histories across different methodologies, nations, and time-scales. The journal embraces interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational methods, while still recognising the importance of locality in understanding these global processes. The journal’s goal is to be read across disciplines, not just within history. It publishes on all thematic and geographic topics of environmental history, but especially encourage articles with perspectives focused on or developed from the southern hemisphere and the ‘global south’.
Download for free
Not available for purchase