The last planetary catastrophe? Environmental history and history of present time, a necessary approximation

Abstract

Both environmental history and the history of present time are areas of historical knowledge that emerge from the greatest challenges that humanity faced during the 20th century: the awareness of the global devastation of the environment and the two great world wars. Borrowing the title of the book by the French historian Henry Rousso as a metaphor and provocation, the article defends the existence of a strong approximation between environmental history and the history of the present time and outlines several common characteristics between these two areas of historiography. Both innovate in understanding the most challenging recent events, seeking in the past arguments to account for the present, however, pressured by the difficulty in envisioning a future – or what future – for humanity, and life as a whole.