John Evelyn and London Air
Steven R. Smith finds that John Evelyn proposed some drastic remedies to combat the polluted air of London in the seventeenth century.
Environmental History
The Last Dodo
The Oxford Dodo has defined our idea of the creature. When alive, the bird was displayed in London as part of a kind of urban freak show. In death it featured in Alice in Wonderland. Charles Norton reveals what became of the last dodo.
Before and After the Volcano Blows
A new exhibition at the British Museum on the aftermath of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 raises questions about the relationship between past and present, says Daisy Dunn.
Flowers and Men
The diffusion of wild flowers, thousands of miles from their native places, is a “vegetable record” Geoffrey Grigson suggests, of human migration and colonization.
Flowers from Abroad
Wilfrid Blunt explains the history of British flora's natives and invasives
Changing Britain: Stone Age to the Saxon Conquest
Certain mysteries of pre-Saxon Britain are decoded by Jacquetta Hawkes
How Oil Became King
The great historical shifts in energy use, from wood to coal, to oil, nuclear power and beyond, have transformed civilisation and will do so again, as Richard Rhodes explains.
In Pursuit of the Apocalypse
Christian apocalyptic literature and ecological predictions both anticipate the end of the world. Are they born of the same tradition, asks Jean-François Mouhot?
Collapse and the Limits of Consumption
Robin Whitlock asks if studies of the decline of societies such as that of Easter Island can shed light on contemporary concerns.
Latitudes not Attitudes: How Geography Explains History
Many reasons have been given for the West’s dominance over the last 500 years. But, Ian Morris argues, its rise to global hegemony was largely due to geographical good fortune.