Early Modern Resources: An Introduction

Abstract

Environmental and “Anthropocene” history have relied on a host of interconnected terms to describe human–nature interaction, including “economic growth,” “development,” “sustainability,” “environment,” and “resources.” These terms were shaped by post-1945 economic policy, bureaucracy, and science, are centered in Western experience of recent origin, and now convey twenty-first-century sensibilities. This situation leaves historians who work on other periods or contexts with a methodological conundrum: how to analyze past engagements with the natural and material world when key terms that frame current scholarship do not align with concepts found in the sources. This Focus section responds to this conundrum by presenting six case studies centered in the early modern period and drawn from sites across Europe, East Asia, and the Americas. Each explores how historical actors envisioned their relationship with materials and concerns that today we might be tempted to gloss as “resources.” The result is a collection of case studies that reconstruct the conceptual and material frameworks for provisioning that guided the actions and arguments of early modern actors.