Welcome to the American Society for Environmental History
The current recipient of ASEH’s George Perkins Marsh Prize for the best book in environmental history is Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta by David Biggs. In the 20th century, the Mekong Delta emerged as one of Vietnam's most important economic regions. Its swamps, marshes, creeks, and canals have played a major role in Vietnam's turbulent past, from the struggles of colonialism to the Cold War and the present day. Quagmire considers these struggles, their antecedents, and their legacies through the lens of environmental history. Biggs shows how engineered transformations of the Mekong Delta landscape - channelized rivers, a complex canal system, hydropower development, deforestation - have interacted with equally complex transformations in the geopolitics of the region. Click here for more info. on this book.
welcome
The American Society for Environmental History increases understanding of the important role played by the environment throughout human history, from the earliest period to the crucial issues of our own time. Founded in 1977, the ASEH is a non-profit scholarly organization that promotes research and teaching as well as public outreach. Our membership is international and interdisciplinary - and those who join receive a subscription to our quarterly journal, Environmental History, published by Oxford University Press. We invite you to explore this website for info. on our mission as well as our journal, conferences and workshops, travel grants, fellowships, teaching resources, and more.
-John McNeill, ASEH President
