Research
Research interests:
political ecology, environmental history, economic
geography, historical geography, historical sociology, world
economic history, globalization, labor studies, political
economy of agrarian change.
I am a world historian of the relations
between economic, ecological, and social change in the modern
world-economy, from its origins in the long 16th century.
Within geography, my work pivots on the economic and
historical geographies of nature-society relations, with
special emphasis on the world-historical intertwining of what
we today call the global North and South. My research engages
contemporary as well as historiographical debates over
ecological crisis, political economy, and agro-ecological
transformations in the global North and South from the
standpoint of long-run patterns of recurrence and evolution in
the modern world-system. I see my work unfolding within a
broadly conceived political ecology tradition, and in close
dialogue with world-historical studies across the disciplines.
Teaching
I view teaching as fundamental to a vigorous
and liberatory intellectual life. My scholarship and teaching
alike are informed by a profoundly conversational style, one
that privileges debate and openness over closed theoretical
(and methodological) formulations. I organize lectures and
discussions around three points of emphasis: close attention
to textual arguments, emphasis on historical and geographical
specificity, and encouragement of spirited debate and critical
speculation. Within and complementary to this approach, I
bring a highly rigorous ¨C and equally flexible ¨C commitment to
teaching the craft of writing in the historical social
sciences.
I am particularly interested in working with
graduate students whose work falls into one (or more!) of
three broad categories:
1) research in environmental and agrarian
studies, especially but not limited to those containing a
strong historical dimension;
2) research in global and world-historical
studies; and
3) research in any field that seeks to relate
local, regional, and national dynamics to long-run and
large-scale patterns of evolution, crisis, and recurrence in
the modern world-system, from the long 16th century to the
present.
Selected publications
forthcoming. ¡°Silver, Ecology, and the
Origins of the Modern World, 1450-1640.¡± In Environmental
History: World System History and Global Environmental Change,
J.R. McNeill, Joan Martinez-Alier, and Alf Hornborg, eds.
Berkeley: AltaMira Press.
(2004). ¡°Conceptualizing World Environmental
History: The Contribution of Immanuel Wallerstein,¡± in Earth
Ways: Framing Geographical Meanings, Gary Backhouse & John
Murungi, eds. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
(2003). ¡°Capitalism as World-Ecology: Braudel
and Marx on Environmental History.¡± Organization &
Environment 16(4, December): 431-458.
2003. ¡°The
Modern World-System as Environmental History? Ecology and the
Rise of Capitalism.¡±
Theory & Society 32 (3, June): 307-377.
Alice Hamilton Prize, awarded to the best
article published outside the journal Environmental History,
American Society for Environmental History, 2004.
Reinhard Bendix Award, Honorable Mention,
Section on Comparative and Historical Sociology, American
Sociological Association, 2004.
Szymanski Award, Section on Marxist
Sociology, American Sociological Association, 2002. (For
initial version of the paper.)
Spanish-language summary, 2004, Memoria:
Revista Mensual de Politica y Cultura 179 (January): 64.
2003. ¡°Nature and the
Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.¡± Review: A Journal of
the Fernand Braudel Center 26(2, June): 97-172. Part I, II, III
2002. ¡°The Crisis of Feudalism: An
Environmental History.¡± Organization & Environment 15(3,
September): 296-317.
Portuguese summary and elaboration, 2003,
¡°Origens historicas e sistemicas dos impactos ambientis,¡± Acao
Ambiental 23 (Jan.-Feb.): 28-30.
2002. ¡°Remaking Work, Remaking Space: Spaces
of Production and Accumulation in the Reconstruction of
American Capitalism, 1865-1920.¡± Antipode 34(2, March):
176-204.
Braverman Award, Labor Studies Division,
Society for the Study of Social Problems, 1999. (For initial
version of the paper.)
Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award,
Honorable Mention, Section on Labor & Labor Movements,
American Sociological Association, 2004.
2001. ¡°Capitalist Development in World
Historical Perspective.¡± In Robert Albritton, et al., eds.,
Phases of Capitalist Development: Booms, Crises, and
Globalization. New York: Palgrave, 56-75. (Co-authored, with
Giovanni Arrighi.)
German translation, 2001, ¡°Kapitalismus in
Welthistorischer Sicht,¡± Das Argument 42(1): 43-58.
2000. ¡°Environmental
Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical
Perspective.¡± Organization &
Environment 13(2, June): 123-158.
Distinguished Scholarship Award, for best
articles in world-historical studies 2000-02, Section on the
Political Economy of the World-System, American Sociological
Association, 2002.
*2000. ¡°Sugar and the Expansion of the Early
Modern World-Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological
Transformation, and Industrialization.¡± Review: A Journal of
the Fernand Braudel Center 23(3, Summer): 409-433.
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