Climate change and the Anthropocene: both terms are commonplace, but their consequences are contested as their origins continue to be studied.

To a student of history, the issue of origins cannot be separated from when, where and how the pace, scope and nature of environmental transformation underwent epochal shift.

Peace among nations and between people requires peace with the fabric of life. History has no silver bullet solutions but it is vital to know how we came to this crossroads.

The talk by Mahesh Rangarajan will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Harini Nagendra.

About the Speaker

Mahesh Rangarajan teaches History and Environmental Studies at Ashoka University, Sonipat, Haryana. He is also Chair of the Ashoka Archives of Contemporary India.

Educated at the universities of Delhi and Oxford, he has taught at Cornell, Jadavpur, and Delhi. He has also served as Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. His first book, Fencing the Forest was published in 1996, and the most recent Nature and Nation in 2015. 

His co-edited works include Battles over Nature (2003), Environmental History as if Nature Existed (2010), Shifting Ground (2014), Nature Without Borders (2014), and At Nature’s Edge (2018).

About the Moderator

Harini Nagendra is a Professor at Azim Premji University, where she leads the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability. Her research focuses on social-ecological transformations in South Asia. 

She received a 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award for her research and practice on urban commons. Her 2016 book Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future examines the implications of environmental change for cities of the global South. Her latest book, The Bangalore Detectives Club is a historical detective novel based in 1920s colonial Bangalore.