“Between History and Cultural Representations: A Different Reading of American Environmental History”
An Interview with RCC Director Christof Mauch by Former Visiting Scholar Alessandro Agosta
30.06.2025
A new interview between former Visiting Scholar Alessandro Agosta and RCC Director Christof Mauch has been published in the February 2025 issue of Global Environment. The conversation centered on Mauch’s perspective on American environmental history, and his monograph Paradise Blues: Travels Through American Environmental History, which has been published in German by dtv in 2022 and subsequently in English by the White Horse Press in 2024.
In conclusion of the interview, Mauch poignantly voices the intention behind his book Paradise Blues, saying that his “hope is that readers of [the book] will recognise that history matters; that nature has agency (which is often overlooked); and that people also have power. We have shaped the world around us and the world around us has shaped us. I hope readers will see that our world is co-created by the objects we produce, the vehicles we use, the mountains we climb, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the decisions we make. And I hope that they will discover and appreciate that there is beauty and paradise wherever we visit and wherever we live.”
The full interview is attached in the file below.
Full reference:
Mauch, Christof. “Between History and Cultural Representations: A Different Reading of American Environmental History: An Interview with Christof Mauch.” Interview by Alessandro Agosta. Global Environment 18, no. 1 (2025): 173–85. https://doi.org/10.3828/whpge.63837646622516.