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Today’s environmental problems—climate change, loss of biodiversity, polluted air, land, and water—all have their origins to a greater or lesser extent in how we have lived, played and worked. At a time when societies are confronted with the often dramatic consequences of past choices made in the fields of energy, technology, industry, agriculture, urbanisation and consumption, we need a history that casts more light on the ways in which unsustainable human-nature relationships came into being. This means forging stronger connections between social and environmental history. Common Ground opens up a dialogue between two sub-disciplines that to date have remained largely parallel endeavours, bringing together both established and younger scholars from both fields to explore how people’s everyday lives have connected to their environments—and with what effects. The book is organised in six sections: leisure and environment; nature and conservation; environmental conflicts; folk and scientific knowledge; environmental disasters; and energy, industry and urban infrastructure. By exploring the complex interplay between people’s day-to-day activities and ecological change, especially the values, beliefs and environmental experiences of ordinary men and women, we can better understand our past relationships with nature and perhaps make more informed planning and policy choices in the future.

The universal human experiences of struggle, transcendence and salvation are explored through painting, sculpture, folk art, photography and assemblage from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Included are over 120 works by some of the greatest artists of the past 150 years.

By Scott Strazzante.