Open research questions in American Environmental and Regional History

What the literature leaves open

• The university had no coordinated assessment plan. The finance department had not explicitly taught students the skills they were being asked to demonstrate.

  The Tallest WAC Expert in North America: An Interview with Bill Condon · 2005 · DOI

• The development of longer, richer histories of environmental response to human activities. The integration of historical data into environmental policy and management decisions.

  Environmental History · 1986 · DOI

• The lack of consideration of environmental history in understanding and managing environmental systems. The need for longer, richer histories of environmental response to human activities.

  Environmental History · 1986 · DOI

• The militant traditions of miners are international in scope but have varied goals and forms of struggle, - The isolated mass thesis has been widely debated but lacks a nuanced understanding

  Class formation and labor protest in the mining communities of Southern Illinois and the Ruhr, 1890–1925 · 1985 · DOI

• The isolated mass thesis has been widely debated but lacks a nuanced understanding, - The study aims to fill this gap by comparing Southern Illinois and the Ruhr

  Class formation and labor protest in the mining communities of Southern Illinois and the Ruhr, 1890–1925 · 1985 · DOI

• The need for research and development to produce retention programs that are effective. The lack of individual attention to students, which can lead to attrition.

  Reduction of Attrition through Intrusive Advising · 1985 · DOI

• The Green Revolution can be difficult to portray vividly for students with no experience of the Third World. There is a need for a teaching aid that can provide a 'laboratory' for the study of agrarian change.

  The green revolution game · 1985 · DOI

• Future research can build on the bibliography by exploring new topics and figures related to Southern public address. Scholars can use the bibliography as a starting point for further research on the history and development of public address in the Southern United States.

  Southern public address: A bibliography of theses and dissertations, continued · 1983 · DOI

• There is a need for a comprehensive bibliography of theses and dissertations on Southern public address. The existing literature on Southern public address is scattered and difficult to access.

  Southern public address: A bibliography of theses and dissertations, continued · 1983 · DOI

• Future research could explore the application of the paper's findings to other regions. Future research could examine the impact of transportation and land development policies on the public interest.

  Land Speculation in Southern California: The Roles of Railroads, Trolley Lines and Autos · 1982 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the role of speculators in shaping transportation systems and land use policies. The paper identifies a need for a critique of land speculation on the Southern California model.

  Land Speculation in Southern California: The Roles of Railroads, Trolley Lines and Autos · 1982 · DOI

• The commentator faced the challenge of commenting on the lecture despite having limited formal education. The lecturer's approach was brutal and dispassionate, which was necessary to grasp the attention of the audience.

  Article-commentary: Commentary on the 1981 John Barry Memorial Lecture Memorial Lecture · 1982 · DOI

• Future research could explore the experiences of other women in the Southwestern landscape. The study of the relationships between people and land in the context of industrialization could be further developed. The paper's findings could be applied to conservation efforts and the development of the Southwestern landscape.

  The Photographer and the Naturalist: Laura Gilpin and Mary Austin in the Southwest · 1982 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the concept of primitivism in the American wilderness. It argues that some authors' views are more nuanced than they are often given credit for.

  Reason and Primitivism in the American Wilderness · 1982 · DOI

• The construction of fences posed enormous costs in materials and labor. The lack of suitable fencing material was a challenge in many areas. The need to conserve suitable wood for future fence construction and maintenance was a challenge.

  ONTARIO FENCES AND THE AMERICAN SCENE · 1982 · DOI

• Further study of the history and characteristics of fences in North America. Examination of the impact of fencing on agricultural practices and land use.

  ONTARIO FENCES AND THE AMERICAN SCENE · 1982 · DOI

• The technical problem of collinearity is identified as a gap - The lack of a visual intuition over whole networks of distributional patterns is identified as a gap

  From collinearity to structure: San Francisco and Pittsburgh, 1860 · 1981 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in existing research on the topic of Cecil Rhodes' capital accumulation. The study notes the lack of consideration of the influence of diamond mining in the historiography of southern Africa.

  Out of the pit: The capital accumulation of Cecil Rhodes · 1981 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the circumstances that led to the abolition of the cotton excise in 1925 - The paper seeks to fill this gap by reconsidering the questions surrounding the decision

  The Abolition of the Cotton Excise, 1925 : A Study in Imperial Priorities · 1980 · DOI

• Future research should continue to explore the significance of the Chicago School's ecological perspective on organizational change. Future research should examine the implications of the Chicago School's model for organizational practice. Future research should consider the application of the Chicago School's ecological perspective to contemporary organizational issues.

  The Chicago school and the study of organization-environment relations · 1980 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the Chicago School's ecological perspective on organizational change. The paper highlights the lack of recognition of the Chicago School's contributions to contemporary organization research.

  The Chicago school and the study of organization-environment relations · 1980 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of the environmentalist movement's challenge to the central values and ideology of industrial society.

  Environmentalism, Middle-Class Radicalism and Politics · 1980 · DOI

• The authors identify a need to predict the future of education and school life for children. The authors note a lack of certainty about the future of education.

  Children and their schools at the quadcentennial · 1980 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the literature on the relationship between geography and history in early American history. It suggests that the close alliance between history and geography faded over time, but has recently been re-established.

  Geography and History: Spatial Approaches to Early American History · 1980 · DOI

• The paper suggests that historians should develop new courses in urban environmental history. The paper also suggests that historians should engage in policymaking.

  The Urban Physical Environment and the Historian: Prospects for Research, Teaching and Public Policy · 1980 · DOI

Most-cited papers in American Environmental and Regional History

• On Abolition Ecologies and Making “Freedom as a Place” · Antipode · 2020 · 171 citations
• Good Sediment: Race and Restoration in Coastal Louisiana · Annals of the American Association of Geographers · 2020 · 63 citations
• Political Ecologies of Race: Settler Colonialism and Environmental Racism in the United States and Canada · Antipode · 2020 · 54 citations
• The Countersovereignty of Critical Infrastructure Security: Settler‐State Anxiety versus the Pipeline Blockade · Antipode · 2021 · 40 citations
• Lush aftermath: Race, labor, and landscape in the suburb · Environment and Planning D Society and Space · 2023 · 29 citations
• The case for an environmental labor geography: The role of organized labor in the climate crisis · Progress in Human Geography · 2023 · 26 citations
• Suspending Nuclearity · Cultural Anthropology · 2022 · 26 citations
• “The Fabric of Our Lives”?: Cotton, Pesticides, and Agrarian Racial Regimes in the U.S. South · Annals of the American Association of Geographers · 2020 · 25 citations
• The racial environmental state and abolition geography in California’s Central Valley · Environment and Planning D Society and Space · 2021 · 23 citations
• Civilizing swamps in California: Formations of race, nature, and property in the nineteenth century U.S. West · Environment and Planning D Society and Space · 2021 · 19 citations

Most recent work

• RCC Perspectives, Vol. 7 (2011): Consigning Environmentalism to History? Remarks on the Place of the Environmental Movement in Modern History · Universitätsbibliothek der LMU · 2026
• RCC Perspectives, Vol. 1 (2014): The Edges of Environmental History: Honouring Jane Carruthers · 2026
• Centring the South: new scholarship on southern planning history · Planning Perspectives · 2026
• R hee Pollyanna, Natural Attachments. The Domestication of American Environmentalism, 1920–1970 , Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2025, 220 p., 32 $ · 20 & 21 Revue d histoire · 2026
• Nature or Theme Parks? Addressing US National Park Overcrowding Through Entrance Fees · University of Tampa Institutional Repository · 2026
• Review of A Socialist Utopia in the New South: The Ruskin Colonies in Tennessee and Georgia, 1894-1901 · Communal Societies · 2026
• Review of “The Rise and Fall of Synanon, A California Utopia” · Communal Societies · 2026
• Review of America's Utopian Experiments · Communal Societies · 2026
• Review of American Utopias · Communal Societies · 2026
• Arcosanti: An American Community Looking Toward the Millennium · Communal Societies · 2026

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