The Indian Ocean World Podcast seeks to educate and inform its listeners on topics concerning the relationship between humans and the environment throughout the history of the Indian Ocean World. Today we are featuring two recent environmental-history themed episodes with Ruth Morgan and Ruth Mostern.

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Ruth Morgan, “Health, Hearth and Empire: Climate, Race and Reproduction in British India and Western Australia.”

Prof. Ruth Morgan (Australian National University) joins Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) to discuss her 2021 article “Health, Hearth and Empire: Climate, Race and Reproduction in British India and Western Australia.” Their conversation covers the nuances of 19^th-century British imperial policy in the Indian Ocean World, the shortfalls of contemporary climatic theories of race and health, and the value of gender analysis in climate history as a whole.

Prof. Morgan is Associate Professor in ANU’s School of History, where she directs the Centre for Environmental History. She works on the histories of science and climate in Australia, the British Empire, and the Indo-Pacific, and her monograph, Running Out? Water in Western Australia, was published in 2015 to wide acclaim, winning a 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award.

Ruth Mostern, “The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History”

Dr. Philip Gooding (IOWC, McGill) welcomes Prof. Ruth Mostern (Pittsburgh) to discuss her 2021 book, The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History. They consider the river’s central role in Chinese history, moving water, sediment, people, and goods, along with the research and publication processes of environmental history.

Prof. Mostern is Professor in Pitt’s Department of History, where she teaches Chinese and world history and is Director of the World History Center. Her first book, Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern:  The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960-1276 CE), was published in 2011. Alongside the research project that lead to The Yellow River, she leads the World Historical Gazetteer project.

The Indian Ocean World Podcast is hosted by Dr. Philip Gooding, produced by Sam Gleave Riemann, and published under the SSHRC-funded Partnership “Appraising Risk, Past and Present.”

Feature Image: “The Yellow River Delta” by Viewminder is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.