Regional Environmental History: Issues and Concepts in the Indian Subcontinent

Contents: Section I: History and Environment: 1. Understanding ecology, technology and agrarian expansion of early Assam (from the Earliest time to the 12th century CE)/Manash Mazumdar. 2. Bhils in conservation: aspects of agrarian history and sacred groves in Southern Rajasthan/Nandini Sinha Kapur. 3. Sacred groves and social formation: towards environmental history of Kerala/Hashik N.K. 4. Knowledge systems (KS), history and environment in South Asia/Samuel Berthet. Section - II: Colonialism, Forests and Environment: 5. Contesting colonial hunting: impact of the wildlife policies in Assam/Geetashree Singh. 6. Colonial forest resources management and ecology in Manipur/Dinjangam Riamei. 7. Colonialism, tribals and Podu cultivation: studying from Andhra Agency Areas/Vulli Dhanaraju. Section- III: Culture, Nature and Eco-Feminism: 8. Interface between nature and culture: exploring Santal viewpoints in the past/Pradip Chattopadhyay. 9. Traversing mediums of environmental discourses: pursuance for panacea/Reep Pandi Lepcha. 10. Understanding the relation between religion and environment of the Ao-Nagas through the ritual process/Resenmenla Longchar. 11. Forests, ecology and traditional knowledge: A Kuki Women's perspective in the Northeast/Ngamjahao Kipgen. Section- IV: Science and Technology and Medicine: 12. Change, cosmology and time in innovation : the idea of non-obsolescence in shifting cultivation/Abhinandan Saikia. 13. Environmental diseases and medical reactions in twentieth century South India/V. Raj Mahammadh. 14. Malaria and ecology in Northeast India: a review/Nitish Mondal.

The book is divided into four thematic sections covering 14 chapters and introduction by historians and scholars in order to understand the regional environmental history in the Indian subcontinent. Recently some historians have started to focus on regional environmental history as a way to systemize their study of the interaction between humans and nature. These regions have always existed in the Indian subcontinent for a long time. This approach inspires the historians to create a new outlook in writing of environmental history from regional perspective. The studies so far highlighted the local peculiarities and specificities and interaction with the broad agenda of environmental changes with consequence of the transformation of landscapes into resource generating zones during colonial period. Most of these micro level studies thinly documented the complex interaction between man and nature and its manifestations with regional peculiarities and specificities and interactions. Indeed, regional environment has an importance of its own particularly in a vast country like India with its numerous historical regions. A proper study of the regional history with its historical background is necessary to understand the unique features of India. Thus the readers will find this book dealing with regional concepts and issues in the study of environmental history in the Indian subcontinent.