Thursday, January 27, 2011

Dr. James Murton speaks on Environmental History -- podcast

Canadian Environmental History Podcast Episode 19 Available

From: Sean Kheraj <skheraj@MTROYAL.CA>

In 1954, Canadian historian James Maurice Stockford Careless published an
influential article in the Canadian Historical Review, titled “Frontierism,
Metropolitanism, and Canadian History” which offered a new approach for
understanding the course of Canadian history and the development of the
Canadian nation-state. Instead of adopting the US model of a Frontier
Thesis, which saw the expansion and development of the United States
connected directly to the extension of a westward settlement frontier,
Careless proposed a different model based on a Metropolitan Thesis which
understood the development of the Canadian nation-state as a function of the
interconnections between metropolitan centres and their regional
hinterlands. Under this model for understanding Canadian history, the
contours of the country’s expansion were determined not by a continuous line
of frontier settlement but instead by the radial expansion of urban
influence on rural hinterlands.

As such, metropolitanism as an approach to understanding the interconnection
between cities and hinterlands has been quite influential in environmental
history. On this episode of the podcast, three prominent Canadian
environmental history scholars debate the role of metropolitanism in
environmental history research.

To download this episode:
http://niche-canada.org/naturespast

To subscribe through iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=300588593

Follow the Nature's Past Podcast on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/naturespast

Send your feedback to:
http://seankheraj.com