An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century by Michael H. Fisher

Abstract

"The relatively young but rapidly expanding field of formal environmental history informs us ever more about vital patterns of interactions among humans, other living beings, and the material world. Climate change, species extinction, unequally distributed and overstrained essential resources (including clean air, energy, food, land, and water), and other of today's pressing issues can only be understood and mitigated by understanding the many centuries of dynamic changes that caused them. The Indian subcontinent has a distinctively complex environmental history that makes it particularly vulnerable to current environmental stresses"-- Locating and shaping India's physical environment and living populations -- Indus and Vedic relationships with Indian environments (c.3500 BCE-c.600BCE) -- The environment and forest-dweller, late Vedic, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Dravidian cultures, societies, and states (c.600 BCE-c.800 CE) -- Insiders, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim immigrants, and the environment (c.700-c.1600) -- Mughal Empire (1526-1707) -- Mughal imperial fragmentation, regional state rise, popular environmental movements, and early British colonial policies and institutions (c.1700-1857) -- The British Raj, "Mahatma" Gandhi, and other anti-colonial movements (1857-1947) -- West and east Pakistan and India following Independence (1947-71) -- India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh from Stockholm to Rio (1971-92) -- India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh into the twenty-first century -- National, subcontinental, and global issues in South Asia.