Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites

Reviews / Votes

With this valuable contribution, Reid and Vail go beyond introducing environmental history or locating its intersection with public history. "Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites" is certainly useful to students, but provides a practical guide for those already working in the field and it is a long awaited and overdue contribution to both environmental public history. * The Public Historian * Reid (The Henry Ford Museum) and Vail (Univ. of Nebraska) have coauthored another volume in the "Interpreting History" series from the American Association for State and Local History. Adopting a hybrid approach to interpreting the environment, they look for "more science in the history and more history in the science." The first three chapters introduce readers to thinking about the environment, summarizing differences in the ways scientists and humanists approach the natural world, and addressing issues of environmental literacy and public engagement with environmental topics. The second part of the book explores the ways in which people manipulate the environment and includes case studies that highlight examples in which history has become intertwined with environmental issues. Two additional resources included here are a bibliographic essay on the literature of environmental history and interpretation and a time line of environmental ideas, policies, and legislation. . . This challenging book will be most useful to experienced professionals and students in formal interpretation training programs.



Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through graduate students and professionals. Students enrolled in two-year technical programs. General readers. * Choice Reviews * Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites is a textbook and a call to action. . . . Part of a series edited by the American Association for State and Local History, which contains some excellent texts, this book is steeped in the history, culture, and regulatory environment that pertains to these institutions. . . the fundamental message of the text is relevant everywhere. As the authors point out, with increasing attention paid to climate change and environmental sciences, the ground is fertile for improved attention to environments and environmentalism. . . . the text is likely to be useful in prompting discussion and convincing others to place more value on interpreting environments and environmentalism, especially for its core audiences in North America. * EXARC Journal: Experimental Archaeology * The excellent work of Dr. Reid and Dr. Vail advocates for interpretive engagement resulting in stewardship. It relates conditions of the past to the world of today resulting from the creation of working environments. The book shows how arts and sciences may work together to provide a holistic approach to understanding our environment. -- Jim Lauderdale Lauderdale, Certified Interpretive Trainer, Museum Supervisor, Fort Nisqually Living History Museum Interpreting the Environment offers context, case studies, and an extensive bibliography that museums and historic sites can employ at this imperiled moment. Reid and Vail make a 'call to arms' to public history professionals to catalyze stories of human use and misuse of the environment--so that our visitors might confront one of the most pressing issues of our age. -- Julia Brock, History Department, University of Alabama The role of the environment as a critical actor and object in history is an important foundation for a more inclusive, engaging, and complex historical interpretation. Reid's and Vail's writings help readers make this shift by emphasizing interdisciplinary research and historical thinking. If you are new to interpreting the environment, then their tool-kit is a guide to planning research and collection development; if you are not new to this, then their field overview and bibliographic essay are a treasure trove of resources to broaden or deepen your story. -- Sarah Sutton, Principal, Sustainable Museums