Environment and History: A Methodological Revolution: A Conversation with John McNeill

This conversation of John McNeill allows us to draw the scholar's biography and his intellectual development "from within" , following at the same time his generation formative process. McNeill is part of the generation of American researchers which founded environmental history between seventies and eighties of the last century. But his profile of historian differs from the others because he practiced environmental history in a global dimension and in a transdisciplinary way. In the interview he speaks about a lot of topics: his scientific background and his youth studies, the passion for the French historiography, his European research in the Mediterranean countries, the ambiguous relationship between environmental history and the politics, his concept of history, the growing interest of students for the history of climate and biodiversity.