Whats the Place of the Physical Environmental Sciences in the History of Recent Science?
Historians of twentieth century science are beginning to address what might be termed the physical environmental sciences that is, fields such as seismology, glaciology, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, and terrestrial magnetism. But is it possible to relate their histories as part of an all-encompassing narrative? Because the physical environmental sciences were intimately connected with the emerging state and the colonial enterprise, through such activities as surveying and climatic assessments, their histories are rich and complex. Yet in the twentieth century, national security concerns gave these fields new prominence. During the Cold War, military planners viewed the natural environment as a bounded, dynamic space through which new weapons systemsparticularly guided missiles and submarineswould pass. Military patronage created a robust form of environmental sciences after World War II. This instauration preceded biologically-based conceptions of the environmental sciences ar
