History of Environment: A Sociological and World-System Perspective on How Humans Shaped—and Were Shaped by—Nature

This article traces the long history of the environment as a human–nature relationship that has evolved from small bands of foragers to a globally integrated economic system. It asks a deceptively simple question: how did societies come to see, manage, and transform “the environment” over time, and why does this matter for management, tourism, and technology today? Drawing on three complementary frameworks—Bourdieu’s theory of capital and fields, world-systems analysis, and the theory of institutional isomorphism—the paper interprets environmental change as a socio-historical process driven by power, wealth, prestige, and imitation across centers and peripheries. Methodologically, the article synthesizes historical-comparative scholarship with a structured review of landmark works in environmental history, political ecology, and science–technology studies. The analysis proceeds chronologically (Paleolithic to the Anthropocene) and topically (energy, land, water, biodiversity, tourism, and corporate management). Findings suggest three patterns: (1) environmental transformations cluster around energy regimes and logistical revolutions; (2) global hierarchies redistribute ecological burdens along core–periphery lines; and (3) organizations converge on environmental practices through normative, coercive, and mimetic pressures—yet outcomes vary by local field dynamics and available forms of capital. The conclusion outlines implications for strategic management (natural resource–based advantage), regenerative tourism, and responsible technology, and proposes a historically aware, field-sensitive approach to environmental governance.

1. Introduction

The phrase “history of environment” might sound like a narrow subfield, but it actually spans the full tapestry of human experience. Environments do not exist separately from society; they are co-produced by what people value, how they work, where they travel, and which technologies they deploy. Forests become timber reserves when empires build fleets; rivers become infrastructure when cities need power and sanitation; mountains become destinations when tourism cultivates tastes for scenery and authentic culture. The environment, then, is a moving target—shaped by institutions, markets, beliefs, and tools.

Three analytical lenses clarify this movement:

1. Bourdieu’s field theory helps us see how different actors (states, firms, tourists, scientists, communities) compete within structured arenas—fields—using various forms of capital (economic, cultural, social, symbolic). Environmental policies and reputations are not only technical—they are also strategies to accumulate esteem, legitimacy, and influence.

2. World-systems analysis frames environmental change in terms of core–periphery relations, long-distance trade, and uneven development. It highlights how ecological costs (pollution, resource depletion) and benefits (profits, amenities) are unequally distributed through global commodity chains.

3. Institutional isomorphism explains why organizations around the world come to look similar in their environmental practices, via coercive regulations, mimetic copying of “successful” peers, and normative professional standards.

By combining these theories with environmental history, we can better explain why certain periods unleashed dramatic changes (e.g., the Industrial Revolution), why “green” practices travel rapidly across industries today, and why tourism oscillates between conservation and commodification. This integrated approach also provides a practical payoff: it illuminates pathways for managers, destination planners, and technologists to align environmental responsibility with competitive advantage and social legitimacy.

2. Background and Theoretical Framework

2.1 Bourdieu: Fields and Capitals

For Bourdieu, society is composed of semi-autonomous fields—structured spaces of relations in which actors struggle over valuable stakes. In the environmental field, stakeholders include ministries, city planners, multinational firms, local cooperatives, certification bodies, NGOs, tourism boards, and research institutes. They deploy different capitals:

• Economic capital: budgets, assets, control over land and resources.

• Cultural capital: technical expertise (ecology, engineering), environmental literacy, eco-design knowledge.

• Social capital: networks with regulators, communities, and media.

• Symbolic capital: reputation for sustainability, awards, labels, and rankings.

The environmental field’s rules—what counts as good practice, how “impact” is measured—are negotiated and constantly reproduced through policies, standards, and professional education. This perspective demonstrates why the same technology (e.g., solar micro-grids) yields different outcomes in different places: access to capital and position in the field condition both adoption and meaning.

2.2 World-Systems Analysis

World-systems analysis situates environmental transformation in the long durée of global trade. Historically, core regions externalized ecological burdens to peripheries and semi-peripheries by sourcing timber, metals, spices, rubber, fossil fuels, and more. Shipping routes, plantation zones, and mining enclaves intertwined local ecologies with global markets. Environmental harms—deforestation, soil exhaustion, biodiversity loss—often accumulate where extraction occurs, while core zones capture higher value-added profits and cleaner consumption landscapes. This asymmetry continues in modern supply chains and tourism circuits.

2.3 Institutional Isomorphism

DiMaggio and Powell identified three mechanisms of isomorphism:

• Coercive: regulations and treaty obligations mandate environmental practices.

• Mimetic: uncertainty pushes organizations to copy “successful” peers—adopting similar carbon targets, ESG reporting, or nature-positive pledges.

• Normative: professional norms (engineers, auditors, destination managers) diffuse best practices through training and accreditation.

Isomorphism explains the rapid convergence toward environmental management systems, sustainability reporting, and certification in management and tourism. Yet isomorphism is never complete: local fields and world-system positions shape how similar forms become different in practice.

3. Method

This paper uses a historical-comparative and theory-guided integrative review. The approach triangulates:

1. Periodization: Paleolithic/Neolithic, Classical/Medieval, Early Modern, Industrial, and Anthropocene.

2. Thematic lenses: energy regimes (muscle, biomass, fossil, renewable), land and water control, biodiversity, management innovations, tourism imaginaries, and technological infrastructures.

3. Explanatory frameworks: Bourdieu (fields/capitals), world-systems (core–periphery), and institutional isomorphism (coercive/mimetic/normative).

The aim is not an exhaustive catalog but an explanatory synthesis that is faithful to key works in environmental history, political ecology, economic sociology, and management studies.

4. Analysis: A Long History of the Environment

4.1 Foragers to Farmers: Reworking Landscapes

Early human societies interacted with dynamic ecosystems using fire, mobility, and knowledge of seasons. These practices were environmental management in embryo: fire mosaics increased game diversity; mobility prevented local overuse. The Neolithic Revolution (roughly 10,000–6,000 BCE), however, fundamentally altered energy and land relations. Sedentary agriculture exchanged controlled landscapes for surplus and hierarchy. Irrigation, terracing, and plowing intensified yields but also introduced soil erosion and salinization.

• Bourdieu’s lens: The agricultural field privileged those with economic capital (land, labor) and cultural capital (knowledge of seasons, water). Symbolic capital accrued to rulers who claimed stewardship over rivers and fertility rites.

• World-systems seed: Early trade in grain, obsidian, and metals created proto-cores around fertile basins.

• Isomorphism: Neighboring polities copied irrigation and land measurement techniques—the earliest environmental standards.

4.2 Classical and Medieval Worlds: Empires, Forests, and Waters

Empires sharpened the logic of extraction. Roman timber fleets, Chinese waterworks, and Islamic agrarian innovations reflected high cultural capital in hydraulic engineering. Medieval Europe’s monastic estates created regulated commons and woodland laws, while terrace agriculture from the Andes to Southeast Asia blended ecology and social coordination.

• Field dynamics: Religious and imperial authorities converted symbolic capital into environmental authority—codifying rights to hunt, fish, and graze.

• Core–periphery flows: Timber, salt, and metals flowed toward imperial centers. Frontier zones bore ecological stresses.

• Institutional templates: Forest laws, guild rules, and irrigation codes diffused regionally—early isomorphic governance.

4.3 Early Modern Era: Commodities, Plantation Ecologies, and Scientific Mapping

The Age of Sail linked continents through silver, sugar, tobacco, and spices. Plantation agriculture in tropical peripheries exemplified ecological simplification—monocultures replacing diverse ecosystems, built on coerced labor. Meanwhile, scientific mapping translated rivers, forests, and coasts into imperial assets.

• Bourdieu: Cartographic expertise (cultural capital) and imperial prestige (symbolic capital) legitimated large-scale land conversion.

• World-systems: A clear core (Atlantic Europe) consolidated wealth, while Caribbean, Amazon, Southeast Asian, and African landscapes absorbed ecological costs.

• Isomorphism: Colonial administrations exported forestry schools, agricultural stations, and cadastral surveys—installing uniform environmental institutions.

4.4 Industrial Revolutions: Coal, Oil, and the Factory Planet

Fossil fuels unlocked unprecedented power densities, reconfiguring cities and labor. Coal centralized industry near mines and ports; oil amplified mobility and logistics; electricity reorganized work and leisure. Urban air and river pollution worsened, yet public health and sanitation also improved in many core cities.

• Field competition: Industrial elites amassed economic capital; reformers and scientists grew cultural and symbolic capital by exposing hazards (public health, conservation).

• Core–periphery exchange: Oilfields, rubber, and copper in peripheries fed metropolitan factories; waste and risk traveled in both directions.

• Isomorphic governance: Conservation agencies, national parks, and pollution control laws diffused unevenly. Firms mimicked “best available technology,” cities adopted similar sewerage and zoning models.

4.5 The Anthropocene: Global Coupling of Nature and Society

By the mid-20th century, human activity altered the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and biodiversity at planetary scale. Plastics, fertilizers, mega-dams, container shipping, aviation, and digital networks linked distant ecologies and markets. Environmentalism—fed by science and social movements—rose as a counter-force, reframing nature as a common heritage and strategic asset.

• Bourdieu’s field today: Sustainability professionals, ESG investors, indigenous leaders, local communities, data scientists, and destination managers vie for authority over environmental metrics and meanings.

• World-systems now: Supply chains reallocate carbon and material footprints; peripheries still host extraction and waste, while cores consume cleaner services and nature-based amenities (including tourism).

• Isomorphism intensified: International agreements, voluntary standards, and rating systems pressure organizations to look similar—carbon accounting, biodiversity net-gain, circularity goals—though implementation quality varies by field position and capital access.

5. Cross-Cutting Themes

5.1 Energy Regimes and Environmental Turning Points

A long view shows that energy transitions are environmental turning points:

• Biomass era: Landscapes shaped by wood, charcoal, draft animals—pressures centered on forests and soils.

• Fossil era: Concentrated energy shifted pressure to atmosphere, oceans, and mining districts.

• Renewable/digital era: Diffuse but scalable; challenges revolve around land footprints, materials, storage, and governance data quality.

Transitions are not purely technological but field struggles: incumbents defend sunk capital; challengers mobilize symbolic capital (the promise of “clean” and “resilient” futures). As policies, finance, and consumer preferences align, isomorphic adoption accelerates—but grid integration, mineral supply, and community consent remain uneven across the world-system.

5.2 Land, Water, and the Politics of Measurement

What gets measured gets managed. Mapping, cadastres, environmental impact assessments, remote sensing, and carbon ledgers translate complex ecologies into numbers. These tools are vital but partial; they can produce blind spots (e.g., undervaluing cultural landscapes or indigenous stewardship). In Bourdieu’s terms, measurement techniques are forms of cultural capital that convert to symbolic authority. World-systems analysis reminds us that data infrastructures often originate in core zones and reflect their priorities; isomorphism spreads these templates globally, sometimes crowding out local knowledge.

5.3 Biodiversity: Between Heritage and Commodity

Biodiversity became a global concern through science and activism, but it is also entangled with tourism and branding. Protected areas deliver conservation benefits, yet can displace local users if governance lacks social capital. Certification schemes, ecotourism narratives, and destination marketing confer symbolic capital but risk greenwashing if not backed by real ecological outcomes. Here, institutional isomorphism explains the cascade of similar labels; Bourdieu’s framework suggests evaluating who gains status and who bears restrictions; world-systems analysis tracks where biodiversity costs and revenues flow.

6. Management, Tourism, and Technology Through a Historical Lens

6.1 Strategic Management: From Compliance to Capability

Historically, environmental initiatives began as compliance. Over time, pioneers reframed the environment as a source of competitive advantage—the natural resource-based view argues that pollution prevention, product stewardship, and clean technology can be valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized (VRIO). Two historical lessons follow:

1. Path dependence: Firms with early investments in environmental capabilities build cultural capital (expertise) and symbolic capital (brand trust) that compound over time—much like early modern states accruing mapping expertise.

2. Field positioning: In sectors where customers, investors, and regulators value environmental performance, sustainability becomes a field-defining stake. Mimetic and normative pressures will then pull laggards toward the pioneers’ practices.

A historically aware strategy treats environmental innovations as socio-technical: success depends on alliances with suppliers, standards bodies, local communities, and destination managers.

6.2 Tourism: From Romantic Nature to Regenerative Destinations

Tourism’s environmental history moves from elite Grand Tours of landscapes to mass tourism and, more recently, to eco-tourism and regenerative models. Tourism reshapes environments through infrastructure, seasonal demand, and cultural imaginaries. Three managerial principles stand out:

• Carrying capacity as field practice: It is not just a number; it is a negotiated outcome balancing economic capital (visitor spending), cultural capital (heritage knowledge), social capital (community consent), and symbolic capital (destination image).

• Core–periphery circuits: Iconic sites (often in peripheries) host the ecological load of global visitation; profits may concentrate in core intermediaries unless governance keeps more value locally.

• Isomorphic diffusion of standards: Certification programs and destination pledges spread rapidly. Their effectiveness hinges on local adaptation and inclusion of community voices to avoid one-size-fits-all templates.

A regenerative approach links tourism revenues to habitat restoration, cultural continuity, and low-carbon logistics, transforming symbolic capital into tangible ecological gains.

6.3 Technology: Infrastructures that Remember

Technologies are environmental memories built into concrete, code, and grids. Steam canals, railways, highways, and data centers lock in patterns of extraction and mobility. Digital tools—satellite monitoring, IoT, and AI—can detect deforestation, optimize energy, and guide visitor flows. But technology is not neutral: it redistributes benefits and risks. A historically informed governance asks:

• Who controls the data (cultural capital) and gains legitimacy (symbolic capital)?

• How are supply chains organized across the world-system, especially for critical minerals?

• Which standards are diffusing through isomorphic pressures, and are they context-appropriate?

7. Findings

Finding 1: Environmental change clusters around energy and logistics revolutions. From Neolithic irrigation to container shipping and cloud computing, transformations arise when new energy sources and movement systems reorganize fields of power. These moments create windows for institutional change and isomorphic diffusion of new norms.

Finding 2: Core–periphery dynamics redistribute ecological burdens and benefits. Historical and contemporary supply chains shift extraction, waste, and tourism pressures outward while concentrating decision rights and reputation inward. Effective policy must rebalance value capture and decision participation across the chain.

Finding 3: Organizational convergence is real but partial. Regulations, professionalization, and benchmarking produce widespread formal similarity (policies, reports, certifications). Yet substantive outcomes diverge according to local field structures and available capitals. The same standard can yield different ecological results in different places.

Finding 4: Symbolic capital is a double-edged sword. Awards, rankings, and labels can mobilize improvements, but they also tempt superficial compliance. Historically, durable progress came where symbolic capital was backed by material investments and community trust—where reputation reflected capability.

Finding 5: Tourism can be a vehicle for restoration if governance is field-sensitive. Regenerative tourism succeeds when local communities co-design limits and benefits, when destination image aligns with actual ecological performance, and when visitor flows are synchronized with carrying capacities.

Finding 6: Data infrastructures shape environmental possibilities. What institutions count—carbon, water, biodiversity—sets agendas. Inclusivity in metrics and shared data governance enhances legitimacy and learning; exclusion fosters resistance and policy volatility.

Finding 7: History is a strategic asset. Organizations that understand environmental path dependence can time transitions better, mitigate lock-in risks, and craft narratives that convert cultural capital into durable stakeholder support.

8. Conclusion: A Historically Aware Agenda for Management, Tourism, and Technology

The history of the environment is not a museum of past mistakes; it is a manual for present choices. Three theoretical lenses help translate that manual into action:

1. Bourdieu: Map the environmental field where you operate. Identify which forms of capital you hold and which you lack. Invest not only in technology (economic capital) but in expertise, community relationships, and credibility (cultural, social, symbolic capital). Treat reputation as a responsibility, not merely a marketing asset.

2. World-Systems: Make supply chains ecologically and socially reciprocal. Share value with landscapes and communities that host extraction, production, and tourism. Use procurement and destination partnerships to redress core–periphery imbalances, being alert to new dependencies (e.g., critical minerals for renewables).

3. Institutional Isomorphism: Use standards and certifications as floors, not ceilings. Converge where convergence improves trust and comparability, but adapt to local ecologies and cultures. Encourage professional bodies to incorporate contextualization into codes and audits.

For managers, the path forward is strategic: integrate environmental capability into the firm’s core resources, align incentives with long-term ecological outcomes, and collaborate across the value chain. For tourism leaders, prioritize regenerative models where visitor experiences finance restoration and cultural vitality. For technologists, design infrastructures that minimize lock-in, honor data sovereignty, and foreground transparency.

The long arc of environmental history shows that societies thrive when they harmonize energy, equity, and legitimacy. Doing so now requires treating environmental governance as a field of practice in which knowledge and power co-evolve—and where history is an asset for wiser design.