Marianna Dudley is a historian at Bristol University working on landscape, conservation and outdoor recreation in modern Britain. Her research focuses on military landscapes, particularly training areas, in the twentieth century and the development of national parks and other protected landscapes through legislation, campaigning and protest. Her book, An Environmental History of the UK Defense Estate, 1945-present (Continuum 2012), explores the environmental history of the British military through a comparative framework of five key sites in England and Wales. The military presence at these places, it is claimed, has protected them from more damaging land uses such as intensive agriculture, urban sprawl and industrial development. The book examines such claims and explores how and why the military has embraced nature conservation policies. The ‘greening’ of the MOD and ‘khaki conservation’ are critically examined in an historical context. The volume draws to attention the environmental impact of preparations for war, and brings sites of training to the fore alongside better-known military landscapes like battlefields and conflict zones.
Marianna has also authored a walk in Salisbury Plain Traning Area for the Royal Geographical Society’s ‘Discovering Britain’ series. Available as a free audio guide, the walk introduces the concept of military environmentalism through an exploration of the military environment itself, in Britain?s largest training area.
http://www.discoveringbritain.org/walks/region/south-west-england/salisbury-plain.html
http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/an-environmental-history-of-the-uk-defence-estate-1945-to-the-present-9781441192424/
Recent Publications :
Marianna Dudley writes: In May 2012 Continuum published my
book, ‘An Environmental History of the UK Defence Estate, 1945-present’.