This section gathers a wide range of publications in the field of environmental history, developed over time through a sustained engagement with the historical relationships between human societies, urban systems, and the natural environment. Taken together, these works outline a research trajectory that moves across different scales—local, national, and global—and integrates historical analysis, historiographical reflection, and interdisciplinary inquiry.
At its core, this body of research investigates how environmental issues emerge not as isolated phenomena, but as the outcome of long-term processes such as industrialization, urban expansion, technological development, and changing patterns of production and consumption. Particular attention is devoted to the twentieth century, a period in which the acceleration of economic growth and the consolidation of mass society profoundly reshaped both territories and ecological balances, generating new forms of environmental pressure and risk.
A first major line of inquiry concerns the role of scientific knowledge, technical expertise, and institutional actors in the construction of environmental awareness. Several publications explore how scientists, experts, international organizations, and policy-makers have contributed—often in tension with one another—to defining environmental problems and framing possible solutions. This perspective highlights the historical formation of mass environmental consciousness between the 1950s and the late twentieth century, while also emphasizing the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in the relationship between science, politics, and public discourse.
A second, closely related research axis focuses on urban and territorial transformations, with particular reference to modern and contemporary Italy. Through detailed case studies—especially on Florence and the Florentine-Prato area—as well as broader national analyses, these works examine how processes of urbanization, infrastructure development, and industrial diffusion have reconfigured landscapes and reshaped everyday life. In this context, environmental issues such as water management, pollution, land use, and hydraulic risk are interpreted not as marginal side effects, but as structural components of urban growth and economic modernization.
At the same time, this research engages critically with the historiography and methodology of environmental history. Several contributions address the epistemological challenges of the field, reflecting on its position at the intersection of the natural sciences and the humanities. Issues such as the use of quantitative data, sustainability indicators, and archival sources are examined in depth, alongside the difficulties posed by fragmented or incomplete documentation. These reflections contribute to a broader debate on environmental history as an evolving discipline, still negotiating its conceptual boundaries and analytical tools.
Another important dimension of this work lies in the analysis of cultural representations and the circulation of environmental ideas. Drawing on sources ranging from academic literature to popular culture, these studies explore how ecological concerns have been mediated, translated, and contested within the public sphere. Topics such as sustainable consumption, environmentalism, counterculture, and media narratives reveal how environmental discourse is shaped not only by scientific knowledge, but also by ideological frameworks, symbolic languages, and social practices.
Finally, this body of research addresses the inherently conflictual nature of environmental issues. Whether in the context of local movements, policy debates, or global environmental governance, ecological problems are consistently shown to involve competing interests, divergent values, and unequal distributions of costs and benefits. By situating environmental questions within broader processes of economic development, political negotiation, and cultural transformation, these works contribute to a more critical and historically grounded understanding of contemporary ecological challenges.
Overall, the publications presented here conceive environmental history as a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and contested field of study, capable of bridging past and present while offering analytical tools to interpret the complex interactions between environment, society, and power.
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