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Locating the Littoral: Michael N. Pearson in the Study of the Northern Bay of Bengal Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Shatarupa Bhattacharyya
This article takes up Michael Pearson’s concept of littoral societies and discusses how it provides us with a lens to study a specific estuarine place, a mangrove forest called Sundarbans that is found along the coastlines of India and Bangladesh and opens onto the Bay of Bengal. Inhabitants cope with constant risks and hazards, maintaining distinctive folk traditions practiced by both the region’s
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Piracy, Estuaries, and Commerce: Magh Predation in the Northern Bay of Bengal Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Subham China
As a postgraduate student at the Department of History, University of Hyderabad, India, I was introduced to Michael Pearson’s scholarship on the Indian Ocean and related studies thereon. While teaching the course “The World of the Indian Ocean,” Professor Rila Mukherjee emphasized Michael Pearson as one of the first to systematically conceptualize the interconnected maritime space of the Indian Ocean
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Religious Differences and Imperial Pragmatism in a Polemical Arena: A Privileged Law for Muslims, Hindus, and Jains in Diu (1557) Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2024-02-10 José Pedro Paiva
In 1557 Francisco Barreto, the Portuguese governor of the State of India, issued a decree forbidding the destruction of temples and books belonging to the Gujarati Muslims, Hindus, and Jains of Diu and allowed them to practice their religion freely. This and other reforms introduced by the crown and the Goan archbishop created a special situation for Muslims and Hindus living in Diu, in contrast to
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Domination, Resistance, and Trade: The Portuguese, Oman, and Kanara on the Indian Ocean Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Nagendra Rao
Did the Portuguese always dominate the Asian powers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Colonial historians used to be confident that the West consistently dominated the East, with that domination culminating in the conquest of Asia. This paper argues that the Europeans faced significant resistance from the eastern powers, with the three-way relationship of Portugal, Kanara, and Oman examined
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Navigating a Sea of Knowledge Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2023-07-29 Rila Mukherjee
This review article emphasizes the importance of using the idea of material culture as a tool for writing global histories of the maritime world. Taking the Indian Ocean as a case study, the article contends that the multiple, diverse avenues of communication reaching across its waters profoundly affected religions, cultures, and languages by way of texts and music, and through various types of imaginings
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The Political Economy of Human Development: Colonial Asia, 1900–2000 Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2023-07-29 B. R. (Tom) Tomlinson
How did Asian states and peoples try to achieve better lives across the twentieth century, and how far did they succeed? Modern discussions of development concentrate on the importance of enhancing personal capabilities and human development, rather than on simple economic growth. The comparative history of colonial Asian countries, both before and after political independence, shows the range of economic
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A Postcolonial Reading of Donald Sinderby’s The Jewel of Malabar: An Analysis of Colonial Engagement in Twentieth-Century Malabar Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2023-07-29 Revathy Hemachandran, Maya Vinai
Several historical accounts of colonialists’ entanglements in Malabar have been recorded. Colonialist historiography aimed to popularize the achievements of Europeans stationed in the empire. The representation of European characters in The Jewel of Malabar, a novel published in 1927 by the English soldier and writer Donald Ryder Stephens under the pen name Donald Sinderby, accepts the colonizers’
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Cannons for the Coast: Reading Seventeenth-Century Southeast Bengal from the Maldives Islands Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Rila Mukherjee
Professor Shigeru Akita’s important publications focus on British imperial history and global history, and highlight his use of the copious colonial archives. While not denying the importance of colonial archives for scholars, this essay explores the role of precolonial archives in understanding the history of a person, place, or region, underlining the archives’ importance but also pointing to some
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The Crisis of History Education in Contemporary Japan: A Systematic Reform by Osaka-Based Historians Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Shiro Momoki
This paper aims to introduce the recent reform in history education across high schools and universities in Japan. Japanese education, including university history majors and teacher credential programs, has for long focused on in-depth training in narrow empirical studies, while basic theories and concepts, ones positioned across the entire spectrum of academic knowledge of history and historical
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The Interactive Emergence of Capitalist Trade-Cycle Dynamics in Maritime Asia, 1640s–1760s: Overview and Prospectus Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Mark Metzler
The analysis of cyclic movements in overseas trade provides a tool for exploring the emergence of capitalistic dynamics. Regularly recurring cycles of prosperity and recession have been considered a characteristic and novel feature of the modern type of capitalist economy that emerged in the early nineteenth century. In a strong form of this idea, credit-funded cycles of expansion and retrenchment
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Shigeru Akita and the Study of British Imperial History in Japan Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Yoichi Kibata
Shigeru Akita’s research into global history is solidly based on his study of British imperial history. Starting his career as an imperial historian by probing the role of the Indian army in Britain’s empire, he incorporated such concepts as gentlemanly capitalism, intra-Asian trade, and structural power into his historical analysis of British rule in Asia, an analysis that provided the framework for
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The United States after 1783: An American or a British Empire? Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-08-03 A. G. Hopkins
This contribution outlines a case for reconsidering US history in the nineteenth century. The standard approach tells the “story of the nation” after 1783 from an internal standpoint that minimizes external connections. Historians of empire, however, distinguish between formal and effective independence and trace the lines of continuity that lead from one to the other. If applied to the newly decolonized
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Empires and Nations in the Modern World: Shifting Political Orders Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Patrick Manning
This essay traces the path of empires and nations as forms of governance, the eventual predominance of nations and disappearance of empires, and the contemporary interplay of large and small nations as the dominant form of global governance. It also gives attention to the rise of capitalist economic organization as a factor expanding empires and later encouraging nationhood. The essay emphasizes two
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Producing Gold and Silver to Globalize the Economy during the Early Modern Era: San Luis Potosi and the Pacific Trade with Asia Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Sergio Tonatiuh Serrano Hernández
This article presents evidence from archival sources that allows us to reconstruct the commercial networks that permitted the continuous flow of silver and gold from northern New Spain to Asia during the early modern era. These networks obtained various consumer goods – fabrics, spices, porcelain – that were then introduced into Spanish American markets. The narrative follows the bullion through its
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Fruit of the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat, written by Robert N. Spengler Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Rick Warner
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Voices of Komagata Maru: Imperial Surveillance and Workers from Punjab in Bengal, written by Suchetana Chattopadhyay Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Kaori Mizukami
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Culture as Power: Buddhist Heritage and the Indo-Japanese Dialogue, edited by Madhu Bhalla Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Janice Leoshko
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Claiming India French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India in the Nineteenth Century, written by Jyoti Mohan Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2022-01-07 Lakshmi Subramanian
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Contesting the Colonizer or Hopeless Submission? Colonialism, Indigeneity, and Environmental Thinking in India, 1857–1910 Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
This article examines in detail how the forms of national or indigenous consciousness emerged in the sphere of Indian political ecology between 1857 and 1910. The subjects of “ecological indigeneity” and “dispossession” formed as defining characteristics in the articulation of this ecopolitical thinking. The scholarship to date has produced voluminous writings on the political, economic, and social
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History as Memory: Alexander in South Asian Demotic Literature and Popular Media Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Syed Ejaz Hussain
The diversity and range of existing archives on the history and romance of Alexander have projected on him a multiplicity of images. Alexander’s conquests, military achievements, romance, myths, and legends have fascinated writers, scholars, historians, poets, filmmakers, the media, and designers of websites around the world. His invasion of India in 326 BCE left an indelible influence on Indian art
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Toward a Global History of Young Israel Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Oded Heilbronner
This article argues that the first two decades of Israeli state-building can be compared structurally to some main processes in postwar Western-European societies, and that this approach productively situates Israel within a global perspective, uncovering new relationships between the local and the global. In addition, it proposes a methodological reading of the young Israeli society before the Six-Day
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The Ghost of Namamugi: Charles Lenox Richardson and the Anglo-Satsuma War, written by Robert S. G. Fletcher Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Atsushi Goto
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Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks across India and Southeast Asia, written by Himanshu Prabha Ray Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Veronica Walker Vadillo
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Isabella Bird and Japan: A Reassessment, written by Kiyonori Kanasaka and translated by Nicholas Pertwee Unbeaten Tracks in Japan: Revisiting Isabella Bird. New Abridged Edition with Notes and Commentaries, written by Kiyonori Kanasaka and translated by Nicholas Pertwee Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2021-07-16 Shigeru Akita
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Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World, written by Isa Blumi Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Inderjeet Parmar
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The Sovereign and the Pirate: Ordering Maritime Subjects in India’s Western Littoral, written by Lakshmi Subramanian Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Radhika Seshan
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The Constructions of the East in Western Travel Narratives, 1200 CE to 1800 CE, written by Radhika Seshan Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Dariusz Kołodziejczyk
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Colonization and Forestry in French Indochina: the Control, Use, and Exploitation of Forests Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Chizuru Namba
This paper aims to illustrate how forests, which play an important role in the economy, the environment, the military, and culture, were managed and used in French Indochina through the colonial period. The Forest Service’s plan involved rational, systematic logging with the participation of companies that generally excluded local inhabitants from the reserved forests and restricted forest use for
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Diversified Energy Use in Twentieth-Century Japanese Households Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Tomoki Shimanishi
This article examines the popularization process of rentan and mametan (cylindrical anthracite briquettes and anthracite briquette balls) in Japanese households. It points out that the scarcity of wood and charcoal and the supply of anthracite and molasses (used as an adhesive) from Asian countries encouraged the invention and implementation of such new types of fuels in the interwar period. They were
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Energy Use in the Japanese Copper Industry from the Meiji Period to World War I Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Asuka Yamaguchi
In recent years, energy constraints have been discussed from a historical point of view. This study aims at examining the copper industry’s energy use in Japan from the Meiji period to the time of World War I and clarifying the process of, and reasons for, the selection of energy sources. This study considered not only energy use in the large-scale mines but also energy use in the small-scale mines
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Russian Preference for Red Printed Cotton from Central Asia and Industrialization Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-12-11 Masachika Shiotani
The industrialized countries had unfavorable natural circumstances in comparison with Asia. But, as Europe had a preference for Indian commodities, it tried to find ways to import-substitute them. As a result, Europe created science and technology, constructed the transatlantic trade system and import-substituted Indian printed cotton. As Russia also tried to import-substitute “red” printed cotton
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Unwanted Neighbours: The Mughals, the Portuguese and Their Frontier Zones, written by Jorge Flores Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Radhika Seshan
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Shining a Spotlight on the History of Diu Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Pedro Pombo,Hugo C. Cardoso
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Artistic and Cultural Values in the Churches of Diu: Reflections on Architecture, Iconography, and Artistic Processes Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Mónica Esteves Reis
As examples of the interpretative capacity, ingenuity, and art of local carvers, Indo-Portuguese altarpieces show how religious-cultural differences could be re-enacted to create new and very particular forms that enriched Indo-Portuguese artistic production. The Northern Province played an important role in the economy of Portuguese India from the sixteenth century until at least the eighteenth century
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Between Ottomans and Gujaratis: D. Diogo de Noronha, the Repositioning of Diu in the Indian Ocean, and the Creation of the Northern Province (1548–1560) Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Nuno Vila-Santa
This article analyzes the role of Diu in the reconfiguration of the Northern Province during the 1550s by focusing on the career of D. Diogo de Noronha, whose role in the consolidation of the Portuguese presence in Diu has received little attention. After defeating the Abyssinian forces of the lord of Diu and seizing over half of the custom house revenue of the city from the Gujarati sultan, Noronha
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Between the Law in Books and the Law in Action: the Case of Diu in Constitutional Liberalism Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Luís Cabral de Oliveira, João Caleira
Why is it important to distinguish between the law in books and the law in action? And what are the practical effects of that distinction, especially when Westernized codes made for native populations are involved? After addressing these broader issues, this article examines the codes prepared for the non-Catholic inhabitants of Diu in 1854 and 1894 and tries to answer some questions: Who made the
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Current Historians of the World, De-Nationalhistoricize Ourselves! Reading the Writing the Nation Series in a Globalized Age Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Naoki Odanaka
This article aims to analyze and evaluate the arguments presented in the Writing the Nation series (8 vols., ed. Stefan Berger, Christoph Conrad, and Guy Marchal [Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008–2015]). The main question to answer here is: In a globalized world, do we historians still need to talk about national history, that is, the practice of writing the history of nations, or should we instead
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A Long-Distance Nexus in the Indian Ocean: Gujarati Banias, Brokers, and Middlemen in Eighteenth-Century Portuguese East Africa Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Luís Frederico Dias Antunes
Historiography has long recognized the strategic importance of Diu as a commercial hub in the Indian Ocean, despite the decline it experienced in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. A great deal of Diuese commerce, along with the island’s privileged connections with East Africa (especially Mozambique), was sustained by the activity of the Banias—Hindus and Jain—who had long used this small
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Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road, written by Susan Whitfield Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Hang Lin
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Picturing Commerce in and from the East Asian Maritime Circuits, 1550–1800, edited by Tamara H. Bentley Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Ellen Hsieh
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A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950, written by Fahad Bishara Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Lakshmi Subramanian
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Abraham’s Luggage: A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean World, written by Elizabeth A. Lambourn Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Ranabir Chakravarti
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Disrupting Mughal Imperialism: Piracy and Plunder on the Indian Ocean Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Srinivas Reddy
This paper examines five distinct events from seventeenth-century South Asia: a pirate raid, two battles and two more pirate raids, all of which represent varying acts of defiance committed against the great Mughal imperium. Perpetrated by the Portuguese, the Marathas and the British, on land and by sea, these events seen in sequence shed light on the evolution of geopolitical players and the aqueous
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Japan’s Meiji Revolution in Global History: Searching for Some Generalizations out of History Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Hiroshi Mitani
The Meiji Revolution that abolished the samurai aristocracy was one of the significant revolutions in modern history. It created a sovereign by integrating the dual kingship of early modern Japan into the body of an emperor, reintegrated Japan by dismantling 260 daimyo states, and abolished the hereditary status system to open the path to modernization. This essay presents two generalizations for comparative
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Subalternity across the Indian Ocean: the Sidis of Gujarat Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Rosa Maria Perez
In Gujarat, as in other states of India, the Sidis illustrate the long-term African existence in India, which was dominantly analyzed through Eurocentric categories substantiated either by the semantics of slavery or, more recently, by the paradigm of the African diaspora in the world. Both were mainly produced in and for the North Atlantic realm. This article aims at identifying the intersection between
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The Termination of the Silk Road: a Study of the History of the Silk Road from a New Perspective Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Bozhong Li
The Silk Road ended in 1524 formally. To know how and why this significant event occurred, we should know more about the road itself and its evolution in history. In this essay, three issues will be discussed from the perspective of global history: (1) the Silk Road itself; (2) the trade along the Silk Road (or the Silk Road Trade, abbreviated as SRT in this paper); and (3) the termination of the Silk
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Weaving Networks: the Economic Decline of Diu and Indian Ocean Circulations of the Vanza Weavers Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2020-02-06 Pedro Pombo
Diu, on the Western India coast and Portuguese territory until 1961, was a strategic port connecting the subcontinent with Eastern Africa until the industrial mills in Western India provoked the decline of the traditional textile production systems in Gujarat and the near erasure of the maritime trade in Diu. Sustained by ethnographic and archival research, this article shows how the decline of maritime
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Global History, Globally: Research and Practice around the World, edited by Sven Beckert and Dominic Sachsenmaier Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Patrick Manning
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World History and the World History of Science Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Radhika Seshan
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Borderland Capitalism: Turkestan Produce, Qing Silver, and the Birth of an Eastern Market, written by Kwangmin Kim Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Takahiro Onuma
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Introduction: a Gentleman (junzi) in the Academy Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Bin Yang
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Big History, Geological Accumulations, Physical Economics, and Wealth Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Dennis O. Flynn
The unconventional model presented herein—Laws of Supplies and Demands— furnishes a view of the discipline of economics as both a social science and a physical science. This essay begins with Big History origins of Earthly mineral foundations upon which the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and today’s Computer Age were based, according to prominent geologist Walter Alvarez. Alvarez argues persuasively
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Cul-de-sac to the West: Human Rights and Hypocrisy between Turkey and Europe in the 1980s Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 Bennett G. Sherry
In the 1980s, over a million Iranian asylum seekers transited through Turkey on their way west, most moving through irregular migration channels. While much has been made of Turkey’s evolving role in more recent refugee crises, this literature neglects the importance of the 1980s Iranian refugee migrations in shaping the global refugee system. By connecting the story of the international human rights
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Environmental History and World History: Developments in Congruence Asian Review of World Histories Pub Date : 2019-01-23 George Dehner
Patrick Manning, in his book Navigating World History, suggests that world history “has the potential to become a scholarly nexus linking many fields of study” that will enable historians to escape the “national paradigm that continues to constrain most studies in humanities and social sciences.” This article will test Manning’s proposal in the developing field of environmental history by examining