Scotland’s Environmental Histories: Mapping a Way Forward

Citation

Main R, Oram R & Tindley A (2025) Scotland’s Environmental Histories: Mapping a Way Forward. The Scottish Historical Review, 104 (2), pp. 155-173. https://doi.org/10.3366/shr.2025.0717

Abstract
This introduction sets the scene for the special issue, laying out its overarching aims and approach in order to contextualise the highly diverse range of methodologies, evidence and data, chronologies and themes that follow in the articles. We set out the ways in which as a discipline we can explore the place of historical analysis in providing empirical data to better inform approaches to pressing contemporary climate and environmental concerns, debates at which Scotland has been at an acrimonious forefront. As historians we are in a strong position to understand how the historical record evidences ways in which communities and nations (including what would become Scotland) adapted technology, cultures and economies to climate and environmental changes. Discussing some contemporary policy examples and challenges we explore the risks of historians remaining apart from debates about Scotland’s environmental future. We also consider the ways in which environmental history approaches give us opportunities to think more conceptually about periodisation, chronology and place in the Scottish past; how it shifts our traditional periodisation but also categorisations—economic, social, political, cultural. We also discuss the fundamentally interdisciplinary approach required, which brings multiple opportunities but also complexities: how can we talk to each other effectively across disciplines to bring new and evidenced perspectives on our past and future? What languages do we need to develop to do so? As we lay out in this Introduction, we hope this special issue will help advance the debate collaboratively.

Keywords
Environment; sustainability; consilience; interdisciplinarity; policy; community; evidence

Journal
The Scottish Historical Review: Volume 104, Issue 2