Projected publication date: Spring/Summer 2012
Submission deadline: April 1, 2011

Environmental historians have been investigating the role and place of nature in human life for the past forty years; but it is only more recently (the early 1990s) that they have turned their attention to changing landscapes of the American South—its forests, mountain ranges, plantations, river deltas, commons, and swamps. This turn southward has also prompted a recent boom in Civil War environmental history—the ways that natural resources shaped marches, camp life, and battles, and how the South’s (and a few of the North’s) many natural features bore the brunt of warfare. While Civil War historians have discussed natural environments in their essays and books on other topics (on campaigns and battles, winter quarters, and the home front), this new research places the environment at the center of the study of warfare.

This special issue of Civil War History will be a forum for this emergent field. Guest edited by Megan Kate Nelson and entitled “The Nature of War,” this issue will include essays addressing a variety of the war’s environmental histories and a historiographical introduction.

We welcome paper submissions on any aspect of Civil War environmental history including—but not limited to—agriculture, forestry, flora and fauna, riverine warfare, disease, weather, and engineering projects.

Please contact Megan Kate Nelson with inquiries at: meganknelson@fas.harvard.edu.

Submission guidelines may be found at:
http://upress.kent.edu/journals/CWH_guidelines.htm

Send completed manuscripts by April 1, 2011 to:

Lesley J. Gordon, Editor
Civil War History

Department of History
University of Akron
Akron OH 44325-1902

civilwarhistory@uakron.edu