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Are there significant academic studies dealing specifically with forests and woodland management in the Early Modern period (c. 1500–1800)?

I'm developing a chapter on resource management for an environmental history dissertation. I'm interested in how early modern states, communities, and industries perceived, used, and regulated forests across Europe and the colonial world. Are there key historians or schools of thought (e.g., the Annales school's work on rural history) that have shaped this subfield? What are some landmark monographs or edited collections that provide a foundational overview?

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By Sujith Answered 1 year ago

Yes, this is a robust and interdisciplinary subfield. Foundational works include Keith Thomas's Man and the Natural World (1983), which explores changing English attitudes, and John F. Richards's The Unending Frontier (2003), a global survey of environmental transformation. For state management, Paul Warde's The Invention of Sustainability (2018) on German-speaking Europe is essential. The "Forest History Society" publications and the journal Environment and History are key sources. For colonial contexts, see Richard H. Grove's Green Imperialism and studies on specific regions like India's teak forests or Brazil's pau-brasil. These works reveal forests as contested spaces critical to state power, industry, and local subsistence.

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