Alfred W. Crosby’s Environmental History Thought And Its Reviews

Alfred W. Crosby is one of the ealiest pioneers in American environment history.The most important contribution of Crosby is that he built a new explanation and createda new vision of writing history, that is to say, he observed the changes of history from theecological angle and concerned the impacts of environmental factors on human societyand the environmental changes caused by human actions. He also created the terms ofenvironmental history, namely “ecological imperialism”,“the Columbian exchange” and“virgin soil epidemics”. The paper contains the following parts:The first chapter introduces the backgrounds of the formation of Crosby’senvironmental history research. The first is Crosby’s personal experience. He attendedThe Korean War, suffered pesticides in the war and the class inequities. He studied onBlack and pursued civil equality. When in the career crisis, accidently he found therelation between the infections and the Aztec Empire, so he began to research theinfections and finally went to the road of environmental history research. The second isthe social backgrounds of the formation of Crosby’s environmental history research.Crosby was born in1931.It was in the1960s when his thoughts formed and developed,but all kinds of social movements were surging in America. The civil rights movement、The “new left” movement、the Anti-war movement、 the Environmental Movement andso on urged Crosby to turn to the study of environmental history. The third is the thoughtbackgrounds of Crosby’s environmental history research. Western historical circle was intransition period in the1960s.The new history was rising and the old history wascriticized. In addition, the ecology began to develop. All these factors added a creator toAmerican environmental historyThe second chapter is main contents of Crosby’s environmental history research.Firstly, Crosby’s main dedications is the introduction of the ecological processes into thehistorical research. Crosby studied the premises of ecological expansion, the Columbianexchange and the communication and spread of animals、plants and infections. Secondly,Crosby did the research on the relations between the energy and the development of human society civilization, the writer summarizes then in three stages. Finally, the papernarrates his views on the environmental history and Agroecological history.The third chapter is the reviewes on Crosby’s environmental history. First of all,summarize the traits of his historical study through the themes, the time and space, theuse of materials and the research methods. Then generalize the theoretical significancesand the practical significances of his environmental history studies.