The centennial of World War I began last year, and a broad international discussion of the Great War will continue and grow over the coming three years.  As environmental historians, we want to bring the environmental dimension of the war’s legacies to people’s awareness – both academics and the broader public.

This year, we have panels at the ASEH conference in Washington D.C. on March 18-22. More events will be posted as they are finalized, so stay tuned.

Last year saw an excellent start to the discussion at several conferences. A summary list of panels and papers presented last year can be found here, and the events from last year are outlined below: 

Last year, we had panels at the ASEH conference in San Francisco in March and the World Conference on Environmental History (WCEH) in Guimaraes, Portugal on July 7-14.  See that website: <wceh2014.org>.

There was also a workshop on the war, under the aegis of the Rachel Carson Center, on August 4-5, in Washington D.C.  Details can be found in the summary linked above.

In addition, there were other venues for presenting our work last year, including the annual conference of the Society for Military History (SMH), which was in Kansas City on April 3-6 (<smh-hq.org>), hosted in part by the National World War I Museum there. We note also the World History Association (WHA) (<thewha.org>), which held its annual conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, on July 15-18, and the biennial SOLCHA conference on Latin American and Caribbean environmental history, which met on October 15-18 in Quilmes, Buenos Aires.

It is not too early to begin planning other conference sessions for 2016 and beyond, as well as possibilities for presentations to the wider public, such as museum exhibits.